/ News
RHex Does Parkour All Over UPenn
One of the most vertically exciting papers presented at ICRA this year was "Toward a Vocabulary of Legged Leaping," by Aaron M. Johnson and D. E. Koditschek from the University of Pennsylvania's Kod*lab. Once we made it past the word "vocabulary" in the paper title, we knew it was going to be something good, and it totally was, even taking home a nomination for Best Student Paper. RHex has been practicing its jumping skills, and UPenn has a tremendous new video of the robot doing Parkour across campus rooftops.
Legs have an advantage over wheels when it comes to rough terrain, but the articulated legs often found on walking robots require complex, specialized instructions for each moving part. To get the most mobility out of RHex's simple, one-jointed legs, Penn researchers are essentially teaching the robot Parkour. Taking inspiration from human free-runners, the team is showing the robot how to manipulate its body in creative ways to get around all sorts of obstacles. The RHex platform was first developed through a multi-university collaboration more than a decade ago. Graduate student Aaron Johnson and professor Daniel Koditschek, both of the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, are working on a version of RHex known as XRL, or X-RHex Lite. This lighter and more agile version of the robot, developed in Koditschek's Kod*Lab, a division of Engineering's General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab, is ideal for testing new ways for it to run, jump, and climb.
We spoke with Aaron Johnson, first author on the ICRA paper, about this latest RHex video and what we have to look forward to:
Was one of these moves particularly difficult to pull off? If so, why, and how'd you solve it?The double jump across a gap (2:09 in the video) is probably the hardest, in addition to being one of the more dangerous. There are some interesting trade-offs when it comes to gap jumping: do you want to start closer to the gap so you don't have to jump as far, or do you want to start farther back so you can get full traction with all of your legs? In the end, it helps to sneak up as close as you can to the edge while still getting some amount of torque out of the middle legs on that second bounce. Backing up farther to let the front legs help ended up being a little worse. One move that didn't make it into this video (but is the last part of the ICRA video) is the pull-up onto the table's edge. That move is still much too hard to do outdoors, and relies on very subtle leg stretching and ground interactions that we are in the process of modeling more carefully. What are some ways that you might be able to make RHex faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?Well, we can already leap onto ledges in a single bound that are tall compared to the robot, but in order to really push the performance of a robot such as RHex it helps to have a very good actuator model. The motors in this robot are rated to about 2-3A continuous current, but to get these moves I've set the current limit at 20A. This means that they heat up quite quickly, but with a good thermal model we can monitor the motor core temperature and ensure that for these quick leaps they stay within the thermal limits. For the worst of these jumps, we know that the motor core heats up by 50C in less than half a second. Knowing how far you can push your robot is key to getting these kinds of peak performance behaviors. Will this project be extended? If so, what are you working on next, and what are your long-term hopes/dreams/fantasies for RHex?Yes, this project is ongoing, and one of the challenges that I'm excited to try and tackle is running transitions. Most of these dynamic transitions start from rest, but we have some early results with running flips that look promising. We are also eager to take these behaviors out to the desert where we've done some testing with RHex in the past. These behaviors should enable RHex to access even more of the terrain out there. Any chance of seeing some outtakes? I bet there are some good ones!The outtakes are pretty painful, if you have any empathy for the robot. In truth RHex can take quite a beating and still run most of the time, but it is hard to watch. We may post some outtakes in the future, for now though we will be posting a longer version of this video with extended clips and some additional angles that didn't make it into the final cut.
Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/rhex-does-parkour-all-over-upenn
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru