BigDog’s Bipedal Brother

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67CUudkjEG4]

Boston Dynamics is at it again. This time, they’ve created a creepy biped with a natural gait. It may look very similar to BigDog, because it really is almost the same system. Named PETMAN, this biped system is being designed to help test chemical protection suits. This bot can stress the suit by walking, running, and even crawling in a room filled with poison gas. Not only can PETMAN walk, run, and crawl, but it can also sweat and change its temperature.  That’s pretty cool. Like BigDog, the most impressive part is when they give it a shove and it recovers with a motion that seems almost organic.

28 thoughts on “BigDog’s Bipedal Brother

  1. Seriously, that recovery from the push was so natural I was kinda expecting the bot to go over and kick the guy for such undeserved abuse.

    Mark my words, these videos will be the cause of the righteous flames of indignation that will ignite the coming robotic revolution and human enslavement.

  2. Me Too, are these things really gonna test NBC suits or do you think they will replace them, when robots get smarter and AI gets more advanced these machines wont like being pushed around so much, then again anything autonomous seems to be a good tap for research money these days

  3. I’m surprised they made it walk heel-to-toe.
    Heel-to-toe is a very inefficient way to walk, and it does more damage to the foot than mid-foot walking.

    Try running barefoot on concrete for a while, you’ll notice that putting all that downwards force directly from to your heel up your leg is doing more impact than natural walking (landing mid-foot) is.

    The only reason humans walk heel-to-toe is because typical shoes have a lot of padding in the heel to protect your leg and foot from damage by the landing impact.

  4. @AlmostThere

    Actually its probably just as loud as bigdog when its not hooked up the big gantry providing the pressure for the hydraulics. There is a video of big dog hooked up to a similar rig and its virtually silent as well.

  5. mars wrote:

    “The only reason humans walk heel-to-toe is because typical shoes have a lot of padding in the heel to protect your leg and foot from damage by the landing impact.”
    ***
    Or, you know, that whole evolution business.

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.