Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Robot With Broken Leg Learns To Walk Again
Antoine Cully and fellow researchers at the Sorbonne University in Paris say they’ve developed a technique that allows a damaged robot to learn how to walk again in just a few seconds.
(Robots recover from damage by trial and error)
This robot has 18 motors to power its six legs. Consequently, its gait depends on 36 different parameters that describe things like the amplitude of the movement of each motor, the phase shifts between them, the duty cycle for each joint and so on.The hexapod also has an on-board computer and a depth camera to estimate its walking speed. Its goal is to walk as fast as possible.
Before the robot is released into the wild, Cully and co calculate a behavioural repertoire of some 13,000 different gaits. However, they do not evaluate them; so the robot does not know how good each one is when a certain kind of damage occurs. Instead, the robot does this after it has become damaged.
So when the leg finally becomes damaged, the robot chooses a gait from the subset that minimises contact with the ground for that leg. It then measures how quickly it can walk using this gait.
It then uses this information to choose another gait, measures the resulting walking speed and feeds this information back into the model. After just a handful of tests, it can then select the best gait.
I think I saw this very idea demonstrated in a science fiction film thirty years ago. In the 1984 movie The Terminator, the Terminator robot's leg is damaged. Is the Terminator helpless? No, of course it determines a workable gait, and continues its inexorable pursuit of Sarah Connor, as seen in the following clip:
American roboticists have also worked on this problem. See Starfish Robot Shows Robotic Introspection And Self-Modeling which features one of my favorite robots, a robotic starfish, which can also determine a new gait for itself if it has a broken leg.
Via Medium.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/26/2014)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 3 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931.
Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet
'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.' - Rog Philips, 1950.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet
'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
