Researchers trained a quadruped robot to cross a balance beam

While four-legged robots can achieve impressive feats, like pulling an airplane or climbing a fence, they still have a few limitations. In most cases, they need a fairly large surface to walk on. A team of Italian robotics researchers is looking to c...

ANYmal Robot Has Both Legs and Wheels

Robots usually have either legs or wheels to move them around. But this unusual robot has both. Its builders say the combination provides it with greater versatility than other quadruped robots, and from the looks of the video footage engineer Marko Bjelonic shared, I’d have to agree.

PhD research Bjelonic and engineers from ETH Zurich and the CERBERUS team worked together to create ANYmal, an autonomous robot with four legs and motorized wheels at their tips. The hybrid mechanism means it can roll quickly over smooth surfaces, but also step over obstacles that might stand in its way. That means it can tackle a wider variety of obstacles than wheeled ‘bots, but move faster than walking ‘bots. It moves around a bit like a human on rollerblades.

If you’d like to dig deeper into the technology at work in the ANYmal, you can read the full paper they submitted to the 2020 iEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation here.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot Robot Plays Dead

We’ve seen Boston Dynamics’ animal-inspired robots perform some impressive tasks over the years, from stacking boxes, to doing backflips, to performing sick dance moves, to pulling an airplane. But you can’t expect robot perfection 100% of the time, can you?

During a recent on-stage demo of their soon-to-be-produced Spot Mini robot, something went horribly wrong, and one robot basically keeled over and died in the middle of a presentation. The problem child came out on stage to demonstrate its payload handling abilities during Amazon’s re:MARS conference, and just when we thought it was going to do something nifty, it freaked out and collapsed.

I’m assuming it was some kind of technical glitch, but it’s also possible the little guy got stage fright in front of all those spectators, and just froze in his tracks. Watch the poor little quadruped fail spectacularly in the videos below:

I don’t know about you, but this gives me some hope for humans to find a fatal flaw in these robots when the inevitable robot uprising takes hold.

[via Digg]

MIT Mini Cheetah Robot Can Do Backflips

Robots. Right now we make them do all kinds of crazy stuff and we point and say “cool” or we laugh, but just remember that laughter is going to turn to screaming in our near future. So anyway, here’s the latest thing a robot can do. Isn’t it neat? Yay! So cool. We are so screwed.


Scientists from the Biomimetic Robotics Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a smaller, 20-pound version of their hurdle jumping four-legged cheetah robot. Presumably this began with one of them saying, “Gentlemen, we can rebuild it” followed by some cool ’70s TV music and bionic sounds, but that is not confirmed.

The new robot can do something that no other four-legged robot has done yet. This mini-cheetah robot can do backflips. It’s pretty damn good at it too. The quadruped can bend and swing its legs wide, allowing it to walk either right side up or upside down. The robot can also walk over uneven terrain twice as fast as an average person’s walking speed. And thanks to those sweet backflips it can join the circus if it ever runs away from its jailers and make a living. Check out some of its moves in the video below:

I can’t wait for the parkour robots that are sure to follow.

[via Laughing Squid]

Boston Dynamics’ SpotMini Robot Wants to Uptown Funk You Up

Boston Dynamics continues to crank out creepy robots of questionable value to humanity. We’ve seen its SpotMini robot navigate around a warehouse before, looking for human souls to consume and heads to wear. Now the quadruped is doing something even more scary – dancing to Uptown Funk.

As the robot dances its ass off to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ megahit, I can only assume this will be the victory dance SpotMini breaks out after it rips off your head. Behold your dancing robot overlord’s shiny yellow ass as it twerks its bunless rear towards the camera.

I wonder why they can’t wrap this thing in some sort of cutesy costume, so it doesn’t look like part rabid dog and part cobra.

[via Geekologie]

Ghost Robotics Minitaur Quadruped Can Open Doors to Snatch your Soul

Well folks, we are yet one step closer to creating a real life Hector robot that will come and rip off your head and wear it while chasing your girlfriend around the building. The Ghost Robotics‘ Minitaur robot reminds me of a cross between a really weird, really excited cat, and that BigDog robot.

minitaur-tb

Minitaur is much smaller than other quadrupeds and is cheaper to boot. The builders say that while the ‘bot costs $10,000 right now, if it were to be manufactured in bulk it might be as cheap as $1500. The bot can walk up stairs, do basic gymnastics, jump up, and even open doors.

It has direct drive legs with no springs or elastic components making it more robust than other bots of the sort. Check out the video and see the bot bopping along in a Pepé Le Pew style gait.

[via iEEE Spectrum]

This Pneumatic Robot Dog Runs Like Its on Crank

What is it about scientists creating terrifying robot dogs? Meet the latest mechanical mutt, who goes by the name PneuHound. It is a pneumatic-powered quadruped being developed at Osaka University‘s Adaptive Robotics Laboratory by Koh Hosoda and his team.

robot_dog_1zoom in


The way this dog moves is creepy as hell. It doesn’t run so much as he skitters across the floor, like a killer robot all hopped up on uppers. If it had a mouth, it would be foaming. And it would bite you.

The machine’s name is derived from its resemblance to an excited running puppy, while it skitters about at a top speed of about 6 mph. Okay, you could probably still outrun it, but it just looks crazy fast on that treadmill.

[via RocketNews24 via Laughing Squid]

The HyQ2Max Robot Can Stand Itself up in Rugged Terrain

Get ready for another milestone in robotics, meaning scientists have achieved yet another feat that will help robots hunt us down and dominate the planet. In this case, The Dynamic Systems Lab at the Italian Institute of Technology has created the HyQ2Max, a powerful robot that can lift itself up onto its four legs, even if it falls.

HyQ2Max_robot_1zoom in


That means that it is good at getting up again after you knock it down, so that it can continue chasing you until you are dead. Just reading between the lines. Its design was inspired by quadruped animals, like how goats are able to navigate rough terrain for instance.

So there you go. Even if you knock them down, now they can get back up. Luckily, it will be the next generation that has to run from these mechanical beasts, so I won’t have to worry about being chased by one. I hope.

[via Laughing Squid]