#quadruped robots

[stevebattle]

Spot by Boston Dynamics (2015) is a lightweight (25kg) and quiet quadruped robot. It is their first commercially available product and has been trialed in a number of areas, including Park Warden in Singapore’s Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park reminding people about safe distancing. Boston Dynamics robots like Spot and Big Dog inspired the design of the killer robot dogs in the Metalhead episode of Black Mirror.

[goldislops]

[lenrosen]

China's DeepRobotics Invents a Hybrid Walking Wheeling Robot.

A Robot Equipped To Walk and Wheel

Quadruped robots are increasingly in use with the latest from China, called Lynx, featuring hybrid locomotion using walking and wheels.

[stevebattle]

WildCat by Boston Dynamics (2013) set a new untethered speed record for legged robots, reaching a top speed of 32km/h. WildCat is a quadruped robot able to walk on all kinds of terrain, but is able to bound and gallop on flat terrain, including the Boston Dynamics parking lot.

[stevebattle]

LS3 Pack Mule (AlphaDog) by Boston Dynamics (2012). The LS3, or Legged Squad Support System, is an evolution of the Big Dog, designed to follow soldiers and carry their gear over rough terrain. It could carry a 400lb load, follow soldiers through rugged terrain and interact with troops in a natural way like a trained animal, able to respond to simple voice commands. The army were surprised with its reliability, being able to traverse up to 80% of natural terrain. However, there’s just something about the LS3 that reminds me of ‘Donkey’ from Shrek.

[stevebattle]

Big Dog by Boston Dynamics (the project lead was Dr. Martin Buehler) (2004) is a dynamically stable quadruped designed to serve as a robotic pack mule to support soldiers in terrain too rough for conventional vehicles. It can stand up, sit down, walk (lifting one leg at a time), trot (legs paired diagonally), or run (legs paired longitudinally), with a top speed of four miles per hour. Big Dog was discontinued in 2015 when its two-stroke go-kart engine was deemed too noisy for use in combat. 

Big Dog drew attention for starring in the first of many ‘robot abuse’ videos, and inspired a veritable industry of parodies. 

[stevebattle]

MIT Leg Lab Quadruped by Marc Raibert (1984), MIT, Cambridge, MA. This quadruped robot explored the idea that the principles for one-legged hopping could be generalised to four-legged running by adding low-level leg coordination. It could trot, pace, bound, and transition between gaits. By using the legs in pairs, diagonally (trot), laterally (bound) or longitudinally (pace), the problem was reduced to the control of just two legs. 

[theposthumanworld]

“Spot”, a quadruped prototype robot, walks down a hill during a demonstration at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.,Sept. 16, 2015. Employees of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency trained Marines from the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab how to operate “Spot”.