Alphabet X new bipedal robot can climb stairs and overcome obstacles | Hacker News Reader

Alphabet X new bipedal robot can climb stairs and overcome obstacles

techtimes.com

129 pointsnzonbi34 comments

Very nice. It's good to know that Schaft is doing something. The leg mechanism is clever; they can run the legs in and out, without having to deal with the large forces needed to operate a knee joint. This is probably more useful in the near term than Boston Dynamics' hydraulic monsters. This is a big flat-footed machine, not an aggressive active balancer - less ambitious technically, but more useful.

It doesn't have any arms, but Google has some other startups into manipulation. Maybe they can get their companies to work together. The next generation might be good enough for factory work, moving around machines and loading and unloading parts.

One picture seems to shows a little spinning brush-like thing sticking out the side of the foot, like the wall following sensor on early Roombas. Is that a sensor? Seems an odd choice today.

They do look a little like the robots from "Silent Running", but that's OK.

The Roomba-like part was an example application for such a robot - vacuuming dust from stairs.

Edit: If you look closely at the feet in the rest of the video, you can see that they swapped out the regular feet for this particular demonstration.

> The leg mechanism is clever; they can run the legs in and out, without having to deal with the large forces needed to operate a knee joint.

Yeah, that's interesting. I know I've seen sci-fi robots with sliding pistons instead of knees; it seems like a pretty straightforward concept. I don't recall anyone besides SCHAFT attempting it seriously, though. I wonder why? (Or have I missed previous attempts?)

> The next generation might be good enough for factory work

Hmm. I would think that factory work is a prime case where wheels are more effective than legs, though.

Depends on the factory. Here's a picture from Boeing's: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Boeing_F...

Especially relevant due to "No FOD" sign (meaning there's sometimes shit lying around that the a bipedal robot could walk over).

Holy shit, that website is atrocious (I also don't have an adblocker installed...)

Here's a direct link to the video for anyone hoping to avoid a monster of "modern" web development: https://youtu.be/iyZE0psQsX0

Same reaction. And thanks, you're a gentleman and a scholar!

This robot will be inherently stable, which is a good start. A clever underslung chassy approaach to balance.

Knees higher than pelvis is inherently stable under load - ( akin to spider and beetle legs ) - this makes that useful mechanical linkage adjustable.

Mechanical Intelligence is important, this robot thinks mechanically with its 'knees'.

So, what's stopping them from making 2.5m high units? Making it small and cute is just a trick to reduce the fear inspired by Boston Dynamics' war bots. I like this bot but I liked the BD bots too, sad to see such a promising company be cut off.

Just take a look here, ain't it cute? So human-like (after a few bottles of wine)

https://youtu.be/rVlhMGQgDkY?t=38

Getting closer to seeing terminators around every corner - it's not being paranoid if it's true!

Robots aren't affected by nerve gas. The terminators won't come for us with shiny exoskeletons and miniguns.

EDIT> Bullets are expensive. Industrial chemicals are cheap.

my sense is that alphabet is selling boston dynamics because they are focused on robots with hydraulic actuators. they are great for industrial and military applications, but it appears that alphabet wants to focus on home and office settings. li-ion based systems are much more practical for those markets.

Climb stairs, overcome obstacles, and tell you that you have 20 seconds to comply.

This looks quite similar to the robots from Interstellar.

Yes I though the same. Especially when it walks in natural landscapes (e.g. on the beach and the snowy forest).

I find the view of autonomous human artifacts roaming in otherwise unaltered natural landscapes aesthetically very pleasing.

Sci-Fi is real. We leave in the future.

Seems strange to showcase a robot that looks less impressive than the product of the company they recently announced they were trying to sell.

I find this one to be more impressive. The legs are using an uncommon approach that seems to fit well with the pendulum like center section.

I was more impressed by this over the Boston Dynamics stuff. The BD robots looked like they had some size and noise problems to overcome.

How is this more impressive than the Boston Dynamics stuff? BD have demonstrated actively balancing robot that can traverse various terrain under loads.

Perhaps this might have more immediate usages, but more impressive?

If the SCHAFT robot is quieter and less bulky than the BD models, it's because it's running off of batteries instead of a piston engine, which means it will have a regrettably short range before needing a recharge. (The BD bots are much quieter when attached to a power cable in a lab.) Nobody's gonna get around that limitation until there's a major breakthrough in battery tech.

an autonomous robot can go swap out it's own batteries, or go charge itself. if it can operate for 24 hours a day, losing ~5% of that time for battery swapping is not that significant.

Depends on what you're using it for. The Boston Dynamics jobbies were intended for search and rescue, or accompanying soldiers on foot; they'd need to go for hours or days without access to resupply.

My point was just that this thing isn't quiet because of better engineering, it's quiet because it's made for a different job.

agreed that it is designed for a different job. but those different jobs are likely to represent a huge percentage of the market (home, office and factory environments). i dont think that in these settings a relatively short battery life will be "regrettable" at all. as i mentioned above, swapping batteries is an easy solution to the problem.

Every "autonomous" robot gets a swarm of battery bringers?

They day we defeat skynet, we shall have our Flyswatter ready..

i think you are overcomplicating my point. when cordless drills came out, people who were used to corded drills, laughed that you would get stuck mid-job without power. nowadays, most cordless drills come with two removable batteries. you charge one while you are using one. when the battery runs out, you just swap them. it takes a few seconds, you get the advantage of cordlessness, and effectively they function all day long under heavy usage.

sure, for military applications, boston dynamics approach is likely more suitable. but for factory, office and home usage, swapping out batteries shouldn't be a significant problem at all.

Link for anyone interested : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

What? This is much more impressive. It climbs stairs in a human-sized stairwell.

This remind me of RoboCop's ED-209, which also had a linear-motion way of moving the lower leg.

The video has a proto Ed-209 at 1m25s https://youtu.be/iyZE0psQsX0?t=1m25s

A tiny gorilla version of ED indeed.

They have lowered the center of gravity. Pretty clever.

brilliant

i love this track as leg idea

it looks so stupid obvious when it is working this nicely

congrats on vision and execution

Yeah, right? This is the kind of innovation that makes me feel stupid. Well done.

Thrilled to see that the presenter is wearing a FC Barcelona shirt, 1999 centennial edition. Força Barça!

Definitely see this being a commercial product to help around the home

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