the "Robotic Mule".........incredible Robotic achievement

Really needs a head-The start of any great robotic project is a proper
head!
Pretty cool though!

Mark

Hansrobo wrote:

    Very nice.  The old MIT Leg Lab guys are back in business.

                John Nagle

castvee8@aol.com wrote:

Exactly. I checked this out a few weeks ago, and noted that Marc
Raibert is one of the main guys at the company. Raibert build many of
the cool walkers at MIT leg lab in the 80s and early 90s.

http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/leglab/
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/leglab/robots/quadruped/quadruped.html
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/leglab/robots/3D_hopper/3D_hopper.html
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/leglab/robots/2D_hopper/2D_hopper.html

He literally wrote the book on walking robots, for those interested in
kinematics.

"Legged Robots That Balance"
http://www.google.com/custom?q=raibert+legged+robots

    I know; I have two copies of that book.

    Raibert had a key insight in the 1980s, that balance
was more important than gait.  But when he left
the Leg Lab to found Boston Dynamics, he couldn't
find any way to turn that into a business.  Most of
the Boston Dynamics software was, for years, purely
kinematic.  It's good to see he's doing dynamics again.

                John Nagle
                Animats

dan michaels wrote:

You can see the original version of that video on the Boston Dynamics web
site.  It's better resolution:

http://www.bostondynamics.com/dist/BigDog_Feb-26-2006.wmv

And yeah, it almost looks life-like in how it reacts when it's kicked.
Really fun stuff.  I'm not too sure the army is going to like a mule that
makes so much noise however. :)

--
Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com                                        http://NewsReader.Com/