Rare Desert Walking Robot: Mojave or Bust 62
An anonymous reader writes "Robust walking robots are still surprisingly rare.
The Astrobiology Magazine is reporting today on the German-American Scorpion Project to conquer 25 miles of targeted navigation into the Mojave Desert and back autonomously. The eight-legged robot is triple-jointed and must travel by day (solar-batteries) for two-weeks alone without human intervention. Because it's a scorpion, the camera is in the tail."
What the heck did they build that out of? (Score:4, Interesting)
Weight: 3.5-5 kg (incl. battery)
A 10lb robot that's 4.5m long, 2m wide, and 3m high?
Re:What the heck did they build that out of? (Score:4, Insightful)
cm is misprint (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What the heck did they build that out of? (Score:1)
But what if? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:But what if? (Score:3)
No problem, it will behave like marvin [bbc.co.uk] and all the hostilities will die of depression ;-)
Re:But what if? (Score:2)
Re:But what if? (Score:1)
As long as the project does not fail because of some fool redneck, its alright, i suppose.
I think the simulation videos shown on the "project description" page are good enuf to convince a layman like me that the project is awesome.
What u say?
Hmm interesting (Score:4, Funny)
DARPA (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Nice movies of this thing in action (Score:5, Informative)
Check out this URL [ais.gmd.de] to see how the scorpion behaves in real-world situations:
Pretty neat.
greetings,
Tom
8 leggs really needed? (Score:5, Interesting)
I just fail to see the benefit of 8 legs, especially considering all the work that they apear to have claimed to do minimizing enegery consumption, spoken about here
http://ais.gmd.de/BAR/SCORPION/simulation.htm
Re:8 leggs really needed? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:8 legs really needed? (Score:4, Insightful)
On Mars mission, it's hell trying to get a repairman in, especially on weekends! (And the rates they charge!)
Re:8 legs really needed? (Score:1)
Re:8 legs really needed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:8 legs really needed? (Score:1)
Re:8 legs really needed? (Score:1)
It's biomimical, i.e. scorpions have evolved for millions of years in that environment, and one of the things this evolutionary process found was the usefulness of 8 legs. Why do you think scorpions didn't evolve with wheels? When you want to build something for a particular project, look at what worked before, and in this case, the scorpions work when wandering around in the desert.
The major design feature of this thing over an organic scorpion is that energy comes from photovoltaic cells, rather than from eating (and catching) food. Presumably there's a reason why nothing evolved PV cells in nature (too big a jump from a stable design involving digesting food?) but that should make it easier for the robot to get energy without wasting time catching bugs.
Perhaps it has redundant legs (Score:3, Interesting)
I year or so back I read about mechanisms for intelligently correcting for a broken leg, animals in nature do it pretty well... stand up anyone who's ever pulled the legs off a spider
Loose Peeve Alert! (Score:1)
(Sorry, it's just that I've seen this one too often recently.)
one reason is (Score:1)
I just think it's cool.
Re:8 leggs really needed? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:8 leggs really needed? (Score:3, Interesting)
On another note, evolution minimizes energy use, and it gave the scorpion 8 legs.
Ben
Walking stability (Score:2)
This makes sense to me - I can't really see any leg movement pattern for a 6-legged robot that wouldn't introduce a fair amount of wiggling.
Re:8 leggs really needed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Rare robots? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Rare robots? (Score:2, Informative)
What about sandstorms and sinking? (Score:2, Interesting)
Correction: It's German-American-Canadian (Score:5, Informative)
The Scorpion project is also being worked on by McGill University's Ambulatory Robotics lab [mcgill.ca] (simulation videos of the six- and eight-legged versions are available there). I should know, since I've been working on improved leg designs to double Scorpion's forward velocity: see my webpage [mcgill.ca].
So, the project is also Canadian.
Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Stop my CPU, it is running away because I did too much PovRay!
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Let's just hope it does its math a little better. The last thing we need is a robot that thinks it has 7.9999999328 legs. . .
This looks VERY familiar (Score:4, Funny)
runaway (Score:1)
a little faster....
Dear mom, (Score:5, Funny)
He has a good government job and we'll be traveling a lot.
Please understand.
Love,
Aibo
Now You Tell Me! (Score:2, Funny)
Scorpions? (Score:2)
German...
"Scorpion Project"
Well, Rock Me Like a Hurricane! I didn't even know they were still around. What's this about them walking around in the desert, though?
-Steve
Oh Dear (Score:4, Funny)
Check out the Vids!! (Score:3, Informative)
offtopic, but damnit... (Score:2, Interesting)
(in case you're interested in this, check out this link: HERE [si.edu])
Bust, probably... (Score:4, Insightful)
I also question when they will be doing this run of 25 miles. If they don't pick the right time of season, they will run into either dust storms (strong enough to rip the paint off your car and needing a new windshield), thunderstorms (dropping a lot of water in mere hours), or a combo of both if they are really unlucky.
This robot is going to take a few days to go the distance. It will have to deal with desert conditions (both day and night conditions, and weather) and desert obstacles (brush, trees, loose soil, rocks, animals, washes, etc).
I really question the whole project - was the goal to make a legged vehicle or to go a distance autonomously?
I think about the DARPA Grand Challenge, and I think what would be the best vehicle for such a thing. Then I thought it would be a challenge to go any distance autonomously. For the terrain, legs are OK, but use a lot of power. Considering the obstacles likely to be encountered, a much better and more efficient system would seem to use wheels.
I would go for a system similar to what the Mars Rover used, the suspension system with six wheels, but scale it up a bit to use larger ATV wheels. Keep the engine, but throttle it back greatly (under computer control) to maximize fuel consumption (properly tuned, etc with proper throttling, you can get hundreds of miles per gallon of fuel). Keep solar panels and batteries on-board, which at minimum could run the system in the event of an emergency to "call home". Such a system would be able to make a 25 mile run in probably a day or two maximum, and could possibly compete in the DARPA challenge.
At the end of the day, though - regardless of whether this legged wonder does it, or somebody builds another device, wheeled or legged, that does it, even over a much shorter distance, they will have come up with a solution, and proved that solutions exist, to several "grand problems" in autonomous robotics that would prove useful in a number of other situations (ground rescue, factory work, planetary rovers, underwater exploration, etc).
Movie Cliche of the Future (Score:2)
I hope Gene Simmons isn't involved! (Score:1)