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HyQ Quadruped Robot Is Back With Even More Tricks
HyQ, a quadruped robot created by the Italian Institute of Technology, already knew how to walk, trot, and kick. Last year, it learned how to quickly react to avoid falls when stepping on an obstacle. Now HyQ is back with even more tricks.
Claudio Semini, the IIT researcher who leads the project, tells us that HyQ has now a "wide repertoire of motion skills that allows it to negotiate challenging and dynamically changing terrain." He says that previous research had focused on reactive behaviors, such as overcoming obstacles or recovering from stumbles. More recent work has centered on making the robot smarter and more autonomous. For example, Semini and his team are teaching HyQ how to use its cameras and perception sensors to plan and position its feet to traverse rough terrain. "Like walking over stones when you want to cross a river," he says. Another trick is walking on inclined surfaces. The researchers made HyQ traverse a V-shaped platform, pressing its feet against the sides with enough force to allow it to walk without slipping and falling.
The group is also pursuing more dynamic motions such as fast trotting and reacting to disturbances, taking advantage of the robot's torque-controlled, actively compliant legs, which can adjust their stiffness and damping in real time. This capability allows the robot to absorb shocks and vibrations without damage to the body. The researchers recently demonstrated that HyQ could perform a "flying trot," a gait in which the robot is completely off the ground during a brief period of time. And in a test that seems to be a favorite amongroboticists trying to show their robot can take some hard hits, the IIT researchers slammed HyQ with a 23-kilogram [50-pound] punching bag. Thanks to its active compliant system, the robot was able to absorb the impact and take fast lateral steps to avoid crashing on its face (if it had a face, that is.)
The IIT team created a video highlighting the old and new capabilities, some of which the researchers will describe in upcoming robotics conferences.
As you can see in the video, the IIT group seems quite happy with its results, calling HyQ "probably the most versatile quadruped robot." We suspect thatBoston Dynamics Google would disagree, claiming that title for its own agile quadrupeds, which include BigDog, LS3, and WildCat. These robots can climb slopes, walk on icy surfaces, and even sprint in circles like a crazy animal.
That said, the HyQ project is still in its infancy compared to the decades-long legged robot research at Boston Dynamics, which dates back to the 1980s when Marc Raibert founded the Leg Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon (he would later move the lab to MIT before starting Boston Dynamics in 1992). The HyQ project also has a much smaller budget compared to the funding provided by DARPA and the U.S. military to BigDog and its siblings. And in terms of design, the Boston Dynamics machines appear to be optimized for specific tasks (e.g. WildCat is designed to run fast). HyQ, on the other hand, is a single robot that can perform a broad range of motions and whose adaptability to a given task can be tweaked by software (by making the legs more stiff or more "springy," depending on the application).
Also worth pointing out is that HyQ is a much more open project, with its creators publishing ample details about the robot's design, controllers, and operation. Boston Dynamics, as you'd expect from a private company (and a military contractor), is less forthcoming in revealing how its robots work, and now that it's owned by Google, we expect that public information will be even more scarce.
So, as we've suggested before, we think that a quadruped robot olympics would be the best way of resolving this debate. And in the mean time, we think that we have a good suggestion for the IIT team to show how capable their robot is. We hear that DARPA is working really hard to recruit more international teams to join the DARPA Robotics Challenge. We would love to see HyQ get equipped with the pair of arms we had been promised and compete with Atlas and the other 'bots. A robotic Centaur is definitely what we need in the DRC!
The HyQ project is part of IIT's Dynamic Legged Systems lab and supported by the Advanced Robotics Department at IIT, in Genoa. Collaborators include the ADRL and ASL labs of ETH Zurich and the Autonomous Motion Department of the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent systems. This week, the robot could be seen performing a live demonstration at a museum in Rovereto, Italy, as part of the European Robotics Forum 2014.
[ HyQ Project ]
Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/hyq-quadruped-robot-is-back-with-even-more-tricks
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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.
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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
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