Video Friday: The Simplest Walking Robot

Video Friday is your weekly choice of superior robotics movies, collected by your pals at
IEEE Spectrum robotics. We additionally put up a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics occasions for the subsequent few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

Cybathlon Challenges: 02 February 2024, ZURICH

Eurobot Open 2024: 8–11 Could 2024, LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, FRANCE

ICRA 2024: 13–17 Could 2024, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN

Take pleasure in at the moment’s movies!

We wrote about an earlier model of this absurdly easy strolling robotic a number of years in the past. That model had two motors, however this model walks absolutely controllably with only a single motor! We’re instructed that the robotic’s identify is Mugatu, as a result of for some time, it wasn’t an ambiturner.

This was simply offered on the IEEE Humanoids Convention in Austin. And right here’s a second video with extra technical element on how the robotic works:

[
CMU ]

Completely satisfied Vacation from Boston Dynamics!

Aspect observe—has anybody constructed a robotic that may flawlessly gift-wrap arbitrary objects but?

[
Boston Dynamics ]

Is there a world the place Digit can leverage a big language mannequin (LLM) to increase its capabilities and higher adapt to our world? We had the identical query. Our innovation crew developed this interactive demo to point out how LLMs might make our robots extra versatile and sooner to deploy. The demo permits individuals to speak to Digit in pure language and ask it to do duties, giving a glimpse on the future.

[
Agility Robotics ]

Thanks, Tim!

In 2028, ESA will launch its most formidable exploration mission to seek for previous and current indicators of life on Mars. ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover has distinctive scientific potential to seek for proof of previous life on Mars because of its drill and scientific devices. Will probably be the primary rover to succeed in a depth of as much as two metres deep under the floor, buying samples which have been shielded from floor radiation and excessive temperatures. The drill will retrieve soils from historical components of Mars and analyse them in situ with its onboard laboratory.

[
ESA ]

With ChatGPT celebrating the anniversary of its launch a yr in the past, we thought this might be an excellent time to take a seat down with roboticist Hod Lipson and ask him what he thinks about all of the modifications with the speedy evolution of AI, how they’ve enabled the creation of ChatGPT, and what all this will imply for our future.

[
Columbia Engineering ]

We suggest a way that concurrently solves for optimum design and management parameters for a robotic character whose design is parameterized with configurable joints. On the technical core of our approach is an environment friendly answer technique that makes use of dynamic programming to unravel for optimum state, management, and design parameters, along with a technique to take away redundant constraints that generally exist usually robotic assemblies with kinematic loops.

[
Disney Research ]

And now, this.

[
Baby Clappy ] by way of [ Kazumichi Moriyama ]

Humanoid robots that may autonomously function in various environments have the potential to assist tackle labor shortages in factories, help aged at houses, and colonize new planets. Whereas classical controllers for humanoid robots have proven spectacular leads to a variety of settings, they’re difficult to generalize and adapt to new environments. Right here, we current a completely learning-based method for humanoid locomotion.

[
Hybrid Robotics Lab ]

On the College of Michigan, graduate college students in robotics all take ROB 550: Robotic Programs Laboratory. For the Fall 2023 class, the ultimate challenge requested college students to create a robotic able to lifting and stacking small pallets. College students designed and constructed the elevate mechanisms from scratch, with all kinds of options being applied.

[
Michigan Robotics ]

In-hand object reorientation is critical for performing many dexterous manipulation duties, reminiscent of software use in much less structured environments that stay past the attain of present robots. We current a normal object reorientation controller that makes use of readings from a single commodity depth digicam to dynamically reorient advanced and new object shapes by any rotation in real-time, with the median reorientation time being near seven seconds.

[
Visual Dexterity ]

For those who weren’t at IEEE Humanoids this week, you missed out on assembly me in particular person, so disgrace on you. However you possibly can see all of the lightning talks from the Can We Constructed Baymax workshop proper right here.

[
CWBB ] by way of [ KIMLAB ]

The U.S. Nationwide Science Basis’s Graduate Analysis Fellowship Program (GRFP) has helped guarantee the standard, vitality and variety of the scientific and engineering workforce by recognizing and supporting excellent graduate college students since 1952. Kyle Johnson, a doctoral pupil on the College of Washington, joins us to speak about his work with robotics, his GRFP expertise and the way he conjures up the subsequent technology.

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NSF ]