BigDog’s bipedal brother

posted Oct 27th 2009 11:00am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: news, robots hacks

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.

Comments [28]

tagged: bigdog, biped, boston dynamics

Reader Comments

How about adding a pair of Jazz hands?

Posted at 11:11 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by irlolcopter

eerily familiar….
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/All_Terrain_Scout_Transport

Posted at 11:35 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by Noah Buddy

this reminds me of the herbie hancock ‘rockit’ video

Posted at 11:41 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by rmd

Nice
is it just me or is it more of a pimp strut than a regular stroll?

Posted at 11:54 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by Alex

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.

Posted at 11:55 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by Arthur Grumbine

turns out pneumatics are the key, many have tried walkers before, but they all struggled with stiff direct motor approach.

Posted at 12:09 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by rasz

Damn, the stuff these guys are doing is getting scarier by the minute.

Posted at 12:13 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by vec7or

stick an xbox 360 running milo’s world with all of project natal’s crap on this thing and you have the first terminator.

Posted at 12:43 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by cyanide

damn, alex beat me to it

Posted at 12:43 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by wdfowty

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

Posted at 1:40 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Funky Gibbon

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.

Posted at 2:11 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by mars

It doesn’t look natural because human walking uses gravity like a pendulum.

Posted at 2:19 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by AnthonyDi

Thank you Boston Dynamics for giving me more nightmares just in time for Halloween.

Excellent work. Very Impressive. Fairly creepy too.

Posted at 3:38 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Phil

Human feet aren’t replaceable, or made of metal, either.

Posted at 3:58 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by sl

No where’s near as loud as BigDog!

Posted at 4:06 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by AlmostThere

@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.

Posted at 4:14 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Liam

A room of these running on treadmills would make a sweet art piece

Posted at 4:46 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Paul

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.

Posted at 6:06 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by peptidefarmer

Mechwarrior 0.1

Posted at 6:16 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by PocketBrain

Why don’t they just have Gordon Freeman test the hazard suits?

Posted at 9:50 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Pilotgeek

Reminds me of the Geckos from MGS4.

Posted at 5:14 am on Oct 28th, 2009 by Flint

YET ANOTHER AT-ST ON HACK A DAY !!! YEAAAAAAAHH

Posted at 5:47 am on Oct 28th, 2009 by md

SWEAT to change Temp? How’re you gonna add a line like that and not show it…

Posted at 10:50 am on Oct 28th, 2009 by lee

Agree with Flint and PocketBrain. I was imagining this thing with a couple of side mounted weapons while I was watching the video :P

Posted at 8:13 pm on Oct 28th, 2009 by JB

Proof that humans are just around the corner from being destroyed by our own creations. That future is one that seems inevitable.

Posted at 8:37 pm on Oct 28th, 2009 by Beavis Christ

haha PocketBrain, JB.. so true. give it machine guns and lasers and welcome to the battletech universe. i’ve never been so excited about the possible demise of man..

Posted at 12:12 am on Oct 29th, 2009 by random

re: peptidefarmer, subj: evolution

Spot on!
I suspect some sort of evlutionary algorithm is at work behind the scenes here as well.
Can’t hardcode such beauty…

Posted at 3:07 am on Oct 29th, 2009 by le'chef

That all good and well, but can it moon walk, lol. That I would like to see.

Posted at 3:15 am on Nov 1st, 2009 by blackman

BigDog’s bipedal brother

Recent Posts

Reader Comments

Leave a Reply

Hacks

Resources

RSS newsfeeds

Most commented on (30 days)

Recent comments