03/30/2008: "Did You Think It Was Two Guys Is A Box?"

ig_Big_Dog-1 (59k image) Gearhead and computer GIS wiz Jim Slocomb sent us an email recently that had a link to something called a “Bigdog Robot”.

While this nothing to do with our local area, it is nonetheless an amazing, and a bit unnerving thing, that at first look appears to be two men walking with their upper bodies bent over and stuck into a box.

But that is not what it is. And watching this thing recover from a slip on ice is not just impressive, it is -at least for us- downright scary.

BigDog is the most advanced quadruped robot on earth, and is called by it’s manufacturers, Boston Dynamics, “the alpha male” of their family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads.

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BigDogis powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.
It has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system.
Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.

In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.

BigDog is being developed by Boston Dynamics with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).
click here other robots they have come up with.