Little Dog

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBSK7LYpg9w]

Dating back to September of 2007, this certainly isn’t new news, but its new to us. This is Little dog, the miniature version of the ever so creepy Big Dog. We aren’t sure if the lack of Big dogs signature jogging in place makes this little guy seem more lifelike or less.  Little dog was designed to be a research platform into study automated navigation of natural terrain. We wouldn’t mind having one of these around the office, though we would have to add some kind of a head or face to give it some character.

[via Bot Junkie]

36 thoughts on “Little Dog

  1. I actually got a chance to listen to a lecture given by one of the teams in the little dog competitions. They “race” across the different terrains by pre-computing paths through them, optimizing them for the robots available movements, and then use some interesting control algorithms to get actual movement close to the planned path. They don’t know the terrain until the competition, so compute time is part of the race. I think the most interesting aspect of the competition is that it is not done with team hardware, the algorithms are sent off and used in a controlled setting for testing without the teams even being present!
    If you are interested in controls I would highly recommend you look into this a little further.

  2. Yea both of these robots are awesome/creepy… I agree that big dog is a bit more creepy and lifelike. the movements on this one are a lot more rigid than big dog.

    are they using big/little dog anywhere? i’ve been seeing them for a while now but haven’t heard of any applications… are they out conducting secret missions that we don’t know about?

  3. In the video of the big dog on you tube, I love how it reacted to being kicked by the guy. it reacted just like a quadrupedal animal, except slower. Fluent lifelike motion. Yea it looks creepy too, decapitated dog thing. On a side note the Japanese have a trippy snake robot that can swim and go across just about anything.

  4. this does look very much like something from half-life… perhaps we could create a real life half-life – like a theme park or something. have big dogs and little dogs coming after you as you battle your way through the fairground with nothing but a crowbar

  5. the articulation of the joints is beautifully smooth. reminds me more of a bug than a dog tho. Unless you consider it’s about as coordinated as a newborn puppy on freshly waxed ceramic tile.

  6. No, please don’t add a head, it’s not suppose to be a artificial pet anyway, it’s to be a packmule for the army, and a robot for exploring other planets and various moons probably, but not a pet or a disneypark thing.

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