BigDog was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the hopes that it would be able to serve as a mechanic pack mule to accompany soldiers in terrain too rough for conventional vehicles. Instead of wheels or treads, BigDog uses four legs for movement, allowing it to move across surfaces that would be difficult for wheels. The legs contain a variety of sensors, including joint position and ground contact. BigDog also features a laser gyroscope and a stereo vision system.
BigDog is 3 feet (0.91m) long, stands 2.5 feet (0.76m) tall, and weighs 240 pounds (110kg), making it about the size of a small mule. It is capable of traversing difficult terrain, running at four miles per hour (6.4km/h), carrying 340 pounds (150kg), and climbing a 35 degree incline.[1] Locomotion is controlled by an onboard computer that receives input from the robot's various sensors. Navigation and balance are also managed by the control system.
BigDog's walking pattern is controlled through four legs, each equipped with four low-friction hydraulic cylinder actuators that power the joints. BigDog's locomotion behaviors can vary greatly. It can stand up, sit down, walk with a crawling gait that lifts one leg at a time, walk with a trotting gait lifting diagonal legs, or trot with a running gait. The travel speed of BigDog varies from a 0.62mph (1km/h) crawl to a 3.3mph (5.3km/h) trot.[4]
Built onto the actuators are sensors for joint position and force, and movement is ultimately controlled through an onboard computer which manages the sensors.
Approximately 50 sensors are located on BigDog. These measure the attitude and acceleration of the body, motion, and force of joint actuators as well as engine speed, temperature and hydraulic pressure inside the robot's internal engine. Low-level control, such as position and force of the joints, and high-level control such as velocity and altitude during locomotion, are both controlled through the onboard computer.
In September 2011 Boston Dynamics released video footage of a new generation of BigDog known as AlphaDog.[citation needed] The footage shows AlphaDog's ability to walk on rough terrain and recover its balance when kicked from the side.[8]
The refined equivalent has been designed by Boston Dynamics to exceed the BigDog in terms of capabilities and use to dismounted soldiers.
In February 2012, with further DARPA support, the militarized Legged Squad Support System (LS3) variant of BigDog demonstrated its capabilities during a hike over a rough terrain.[9]
Starting in the summer of 2012, DARPA planned to complete the overall development of the system and refine its key capabilities in 18 months, ensuring its worth to dismounted warfighters before it is rolled out to squads operating in-theatre. BigDog must be able to demonstrate its ability to complete a 20-mile (32km) trail in 24 hours, without refuelling, while carrying a 325-pound (150kg) load. A refinement of its vision sensors will also be conducted.
At the end of February 2013, Boston Dynamics released video footage of a modified BigDog with an arm. The arm could pick up objects and throw them. The robot is relying on its legs and torso to help power the motions of the arm. It is believed that it can lift weights around 55 pounds (25kg).[10] This work was funded by the United States Army Research Laboratory and paved the way for integrating manipulators with quadrupeds as found on Spot, the spiritual successor of BigDog. [11]
Discontinuation
At the end of December 2013, the BigDog project was discontinued. Despite hopes that it would one day work like a pack mule for US soldiers in the field, the gasoline-powered engine was deemed too noisy for use in combat, and it could be heard from hundreds of meters away. A similar project for an all-electric robot named Spot in 2016 was much quieter, but could only carry 45 pounds (20kg). Both projects are no longer in progress, but the Spot was only released in 2020.[2][12]
Hardware
BigDog is powered by a small two-stroke, one-cylinder, 15-brake-horsepower (11kW) engine operating at over 9.000 RPM. The engine drives a hydraulic pump, which in turn drives the hydraulic leg actuators. Each leg has four actuators (two for the hip joint, and two each for the knee and ankle joints), for a total of 16. Each actuator unit consists of a hydraulic cylinder, servo valve, position sensor, and force sensor.
Onboard computing power is a ruggedizedPC/104 board stack with two computers, one running a Pentium M processor running QNX (used for sensor data processing) and another running a Core Duo processor (used for visual data processing).[13][14]
Quadrupedalism is a form of locomotion where animals have four legs that are used to bear weight and move around. An animal or machine that usually maintains a four-legged posture and moves using all four legs is said to be a quadruped. Quadruped animals are found among both vertebrates and invertebrates.
GuRoo is a humanoid robot developed at the Mobile Robotics Laboratory in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland. The design of the GuRoo is based on the human form and it is kept as anthropomorphic as possible. GuRoo is completely autonomous. It is used for research in different areas including dynamic stability, human-robot interaction and machine learning. GuRoo competes in the annual RoboCup. The goal of this competition is to foster the development of robotics through an annual soccer competition. It is the dream of the RoboCup federation to develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots, to play against and beat the human team that wins the World Cup in the year 2050.
Robot locomotion is the collective name for the various methods that robots use to transport themselves from place to place.
Passive dynamics refers to the dynamical behavior of actuators, robots, or organisms when not drawing energy from a supply. Depending on the application, considering or altering the passive dynamics of a powered system can have drastic effects on performance, particularly energy economy, stability, and task bandwidth. Devices using no power source are considered "passive", and their behavior is fully described by their passive dynamics.
Stanley is an autonomous car created by Stanford University's Stanford Racing Team in cooperation with the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL). It won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, earning the Stanford Racing Team a $2 million prize.
The Walking Truck or Cybernetic Walking Machine was an experimental quadruped walking vehicle created by General Electric in 1965. It was designed by Ralph Mosher to help infantry carry equipment over rough terrain. It alternatively bore the name of "CAM", an acronym for "Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machine". It appeared in a segment of the Walter Cronkite–hosted The 20th Century in 1968.
Marc Raibert is the Executive Director of the Boston Dynamics AI Institute, a Hyundai Motor Group organization. Raibert was the founder, former CEO, and now Chairman of Boston Dynamics, a robotics company known for creating BigDog, Atlas, Spot, and Handle.
Legged robots are a type of mobile robot which use articulated limbs, such as leg mechanisms, to provide locomotion. They are more versatile than wheeled robots and can traverse many different terrains, though these advantages require increased complexity and power consumption. Legged robots often imitate legged animals, such as humans or insects, in an example of biomimicry.
The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR) is a remotely controlled robot developed by Vecna Robotics for use in the extraction of wounded soldiers from the battlefield with no risk to human life. The humanoid robot uses a powerful hydraulics system to carry humans and other heavy objects over long distances and rough terrain, such as stairs.
Boston Dynamics, Inc., is an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Boston Dynamics has been owned by the Hyundai Motor Group since December 2020, but having only completed the acquisition in June 2021.
RHex is an autonomous robot design, based on hexapod with compliant legs and one actuator per leg. A number of US universities have participated, with funding grants also coming from DARPA.
The Legged Squad Support System (LS3) was a DARPA project for a legged robot which could function autonomously as a packhorse for a squad of soldiers or marines. Like BigDog, its quadruped predecessor, the LS3 was ruggedized for military use, with the ability to operate in hot, cold, wet, and dirty environments. The LS3 was put into storage in late 2015.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to robotics:
LAURON is a six-legged walking robot, which is being developed at the FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik in Germany. The mechanics and the movements of the robot are biologically-inspired, mimicking the stick insect Carausius Morosus. The development of the LAURON walking robot started with basic research in field of six-legged locomotion in the early 1990s and led to the first robot, called LAURON. In the year 1994, this robot was presented to public at the CeBIT in Hanover. This first LAURON generation was, in contrast to the current generation, controlled by an artificial neural network, hence the robot's German name: LAUfROboter Neuronal gesteuert. The current generation LARUON V was finished in 2013.
Bio-inspired robotic locomotion is a subcategory of bio-inspired design. It is about learning concepts from nature and applying them to the design of real-world engineered systems. More specifically, this field is about making robots that are inspired by biological systems, including Biomimicry. Biomimicry is copying from nature while bio-inspired design is learning from nature and making a mechanism that is simpler and more effective than the system observed in nature. Biomimicry has led to the development of a different branch of robotics called soft robotics. The biological systems have been optimized for specific tasks according to their habitat. However, they are multifunctional and are not designed for only one specific functionality. Bio-inspired robotics is about studying biological systems, and looking for the mechanisms that may solve a problem in the engineering field. The designer should then try to simplify and enhance that mechanism for the specific task of interest. Bio-inspired roboticists are usually interested in biosensors, bioactuators, or biomaterials. Most of the robots have some type of locomotion system. Thus, in this article different modes of animal locomotion and few examples of the corresponding bio-inspired robots are introduced.
Atlas is the name used for multiple robot models produced by Boston Dynamics.
Proportional myoelectric control can be used to activate robotic lower limb exoskeletons. A proportional myoelectric control system utilizes a microcontroller or computer that inputs electromyography (EMG) signals from sensors on the leg muscle(s) and then activates the corresponding joint actuator(s) proportionally to the EMG signal.
A walking vehicle is a vehicle that moves on legs rather than wheels or tracks. Walking vehicles have been constructed with anywhere from one to more than eight legs. There are many designs for the leg mechanisms of walking machines that provide foot trajectories with different properties.
Arachnid locomotion is the various means by which arachnids walk, run, or jump; they make use of more than muscle contraction, employing additional methods like hydraulic compression. Another adaptation seen especially in larger arachnid variants is inclusion of elastic connective tissues.
An insectoid robot is a, usually small, robot featuring some insect-like features. These can include the methods of locomotion, methods of navigation, and artificial intelligence based on insect models. Many of the problems faced by miniature robot designers have been solved by insect evolution. Researchers naturally look to insects for inspiration and solutions.
↑ Quiazua, Nicolas & Corbeil, Laurent Bastien (November 26, 2012). "From the Lab to the Battlefield". McGill Daily. Archived from the original on May 9, 2019. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
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