K'Kree-bot

[saundby]

Wow, DARPA is building robotic K'Kree. Why does that bother me?

http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html

K'Kree was my first thought. After watching the video, "silly knees-bent running around advancing behaviour" came to mind next.

 

[ShapeShifter]

A robotic pack-mule. Very cool. I can definitely see this doing exploration on Mars, or bearing wounded troops from the front lines. However, at a slothful 4mph, they will have to improve the motors. If it can eventually cover a march-rate of 15-20 mpd, all the better.

 

[Lycanorukke]

A robotic pack-mule. Very cool. I can definitely see this doing exploration on Mars, or bearing wounded troops from the front lines. However, at a slothful 4mph, they will have to improve the motors. If it can eventually cover a march-rate of 15-20 mpd, all the better.

Already done.

Big Dog has been around for abut 5 years now. The lastest project from DARPA/Boston Dynamics is 'Cheeta' which has clocked 18mph - with a 'free roaming' model expected later this year
Video.

On Edit: And on Robots - you have BDs PETMAN (to be used to test CBW equipment - though also good for 'Stayin Alive' musicals).

 

[ShapeShifter]

That Cheeta is saw-weeeet!! I soo want one of those! Put a 180 degree swivelling mini-gun on the back of several of those suckers and you've got an impressive urban warfare weapons platform. Or at least you might have a slight edge over one of the Predators. 'Though, I don't think I'd want to be given the detail to clean its litter-box. o:

 

[saundby]

PETMAN:
Drop an' gimme 20! Obviously and Army bot. :rofl:

Cheetah:
Pretty nifty, I've heard they're moving to non-treadmill testing soon.

I was surprised with LS3 how much larger it got than Big Dog with a payload increase of from 340 to 400 lb. I suppose the people who set the 400 lb. spec thought that, too.

I was surprised that Cheetah is stated to be the fastest 4-legged robot at 18MPH. We had a chassis for a 4-legged spider-bot back in the 80s that clocked a lot more than that, even once the autonomous control system ("robot") was mounted, but I suppose none of that was official enough for a record or whatever. I'll bet he's still sitting in a storage room somewhere (hopefully hasn't been moved out into a boneyard.) Surprised nobody's pulled him out with all the robotics money flying around. *shrug* It went far faster, and we didn't have it on cables or a treadmill, it was all on its own on open ground. Moved scary fast when you were around it. Nobody was crowding the limit lines on those test runs!

Figured if I ever had to be in a wheelchair, I'd build up one of those instead (might yet anyway, just for fun, but a 6 legged version would be far easier to write the software for--you can always have one tripod on the ground, and another in motion.)

 

[bookwyrm67]

M.u.l.e.

nintendo had a game out called M.U.L.E. that robot looks like the M.U.L.E. in the game. basically u were colonizing a planet, winner was worth the most after 12 months (turns). kinda also looks like those ATAT's in Star Wars a little bit, but without the head and smaller. future technology from the imaginations of past science fiction.

 

[saundby]

I didn't think of M.U.L.E. at first, but it does look a bit like one. The sort of back articulation in the Cheetah-bot would make it move more like one.

Great, now we have bots that will run off after we've spent all our smithore to build them!