Robot walks like a human, no power required | Hacker News Reader

Robot walks like a human, no power required

extremetech.com

76 pointslmathews27 comments

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Passive walking has been around for years and years - this is simply another very well designed version of it. =)

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~artkuo/Passive_Walk/passive_w...

More like "pendulum clock that looks like legs". Walking means propelling itself, climbing up and down and be steered.

It's a Slinky with legs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KgEyKgJpnY

But it only walks downhill.

You just need one of those Escher staircase thingees...

Or an escalator.

or a treadmill like in the video

Falling with style.

Thanks for taking the thermodynamics-defiance out of the robot and replacing it with kinetic energy over time.

True, but doesn't this mean that biped robots wouldn't be required to expend energy when walking downhill? Depending on the application, it can greatly increase the time that a robot can be in use.

It might be pretty difficult to build a robot that can both walk passively downhill, and walk actively uphill.

Can that thing walk downhill over an uneven terrain?

BigDog was able to go both uphill and downhill, as well as even be kicked from the side while maintaining balance. Good point regarding being passive, I figured that somehow the robot would figure out the slope and provide extra power when the terrain was uneven or if it would be unable to maintain a given speed passively.

BigDog didn't walk downhill passively, did it?

No, it didn't. Sorry if that's how it came across - I was just supposing that this concept could be use to extend the life of a robot such as BigDog or others by controlling how passive it was in response to downhill slopes.

We could go downhill with (almost) no power too, if only we could coast-run fast enough (and could handle the shock in your leg when your stride becomes so long you fall several feet with each step)

and could handle the shock in your leg when your stride becomes so long you fall several feet with each step

This is possible when running down a steep sand incline. Very fun.

See "Toddler learning to walk" at http://groups.csail.mit.edu/locomotion/videos.html (2004). At first, the robot walks passively down an inclined treadmill. But it quickly learns how to efficiently add just a little bit of power from its motors at the right time each stride, such that it soon walks on level ground and adapts to different surraces.

So it does use a power source. The title should read - "Robot walks downhill without additional power source".

You thought someone invented a perpetual motion machine?

This reminds me of Theo Jansen's Strandbeests http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSKyHmjyrkA

It's called BlueBiped and has 3 legs. Not impressed.

Ugh, another interesting link made unviewable by OnSwipe

I use the Readability bookmarklet when I encounter this.

B.R.I.C.K. my new robot flying aircraft can fly with no power.

(as long as it's only downwards)

Guys, everything can go downhill without power. A wheel would go much faster and more efficiently than this. It's thanks to something called gravity.

This is pretty amazing! It'll definitely require power and motors to actually "walk", i.e. propel itself downhill, uphill or on a straight surface, but much less than what other robotic walkers do. And I don't see the need to make it two legged, either - that three-legged combination is fine by me, as long as it can clean my house, take out the garbage or carry boxes at a factory :-).

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