legged robot
In plain wordsA robot that walks on legs instead of rolling on wheels, such as a four-legged 'robot dog' or a two-legged humanoid, so it can climb stairs and cross rough ground.
A mobile robotmobile robot, n.: A robot that travels around by itself — on wheels, tracks, legs, propellers or thrusters — such as a robot vacuum, warehouse cart, delivery robot or planetary rover. that walks, runs or climbs on jointed legs: bipeds (two legs, as in humanoidshumanoid robot, n.: A robot built roughly in human shape, with a head, torso, two arms and usually two legs, so that it can work in spaces and with tools designed for people.), quadrupeds (four, the most commercially successful form), hexapods and others. Legs let robots cross terrain that defeats wheels — stairs, rubble, steep slopes, gaps — at the price of harder control, because the robot must keep its balance through intermittent ground contacts. Statically stable gaits keep the center of mass over the support polygon formed by the feet; dynamically stable gaits, such as running, rely on continual corrective motion. Control has progressed from hand-designed gait patterns and simplified models (spring-loaded inverted pendulum, zero moment pointzero moment point, n.: The spot on the ground beneath a walking robot where the floor's push balances out; keeping it inside the area under the robot's feet stops the robot from tipping over.) through model predictive controlmodel predictive control, n.: A control method that repeatedly plans the best moves a few seconds ahead using a model of the machine, carries out only the first move, then plans again with fresh measurements. to policies trained by reinforcement learningreinforcement learning, n.: A way of teaching a computer program by trial and error: it tries actions, earns points for good results and penalties for bad ones, and gradually learns which choices pay off over time. in simulation. Key enablers are high-torque, back-drivable actuatorsactuator, n.: The 'muscle' of a machine: a motor or similar device that turns electrical, hydraulic or air power into movement, such as turning a robot's joint or closing its gripper., proprioceptiveproprioception, n.: A robot's sense of its own body: where its joints are, how fast they are moving and how hard its motors are pushing, measured by internal sensors rather than cameras. sensing of joint torques and foot contacts, and fast state estimation. Commercial quadrupeds such as Boston Dynamics' Spot, ANYbotics' ANYmal and Unitree's models are used for industrial inspection, surveying, public safety and research.
We sent the legged robot through the substation because cable trays block the wheeled carts.
Origin
Early walking machines include the Phony Pony at the University of Southern California (1966), among the first computer-controlled walkers, and GE's operator-driven Walking Truck (late 1960s). Marc Raibert's hopping robots of the 1980s demonstrated dynamic balance; he founded Boston Dynamics in 1992, whose BigDog (2005) and Spot (sold from 2020) popularized the robot dog.
Related
- locomotionlocomotion, n.: How a robot moves itself from place to place: rolling on wheels, walking on legs, crawling, swimming or flying.
- humanoid robothumanoid robot, n.: A robot built roughly in human shape, with a head, torso, two arms and usually two legs, so that it can work in spaces and with tools designed for people.
- mobile robotmobile robot, n.: A robot that travels around by itself — on wheels, tracks, legs, propellers or thrusters — such as a robot vacuum, warehouse cart, delivery robot or planetary rover.
- zero moment pointzero moment point, n.: The spot on the ground beneath a walking robot where the floor's push balances out; keeping it inside the area under the robot's feet stops the robot from tipping over.
- proprioceptionproprioception, n.: A robot's sense of its own body: where its joints are, how fast they are moving and how hard its motors are pushing, measured by internal sensors rather than cameras.
- sim-to-real transfersim-to-real transfer, n.: Training a robot's AI in a computer simulation, where practice is fast, cheap and safe, and then making it work on the real robot despite the differences between simulation and reality.
- actuatoractuator, n.: The 'muscle' of a machine: a motor or similar device that turns electrical, hydraulic or air power into movement, such as turning a robot's joint or closing its gripper.
Sources
- Raibert, M. H. (1986). Legged Robots That Balance. MIT Press.
Mentioned in
humanoid robothumanoid robot, n.: A robot built roughly in human shape, with a head, torso, two arms and usually two legs, so that it can work in spaces and with tools designed for people., robotrobot, n.: A machine that senses its surroundings, decides what to do and physically acts, moving itself or handling objects, with some independence from a human operator. Factory arms, robot vacuums and self-driving cars are all robots., actuatoractuator, n.: The 'muscle' of a machine: a motor or similar device that turns electrical, hydraulic or air power into movement, such as turning a robot's joint or closing its gripper., locomotionlocomotion, n.: How a robot moves itself from place to place: rolling on wheels, walking on legs, crawling, swimming or flying., mobile robotmobile robot, n.: A robot that travels around by itself — on wheels, tracks, legs, propellers or thrusters — such as a robot vacuum, warehouse cart, delivery robot or planetary rover., model predictive controlmodel predictive control, n.: A control method that repeatedly plans the best moves a few seconds ahead using a model of the machine, carries out only the first move, then plans again with fresh measurements., proprioceptionproprioception, n.: A robot's sense of its own body: where its joints are, how fast they are moving and how hard its motors are pushing, measured by internal sensors rather than cameras., zero moment pointzero moment point, n.: The spot on the ground beneath a walking robot where the floor's push balances out; keeping it inside the area under the robot's feet stops the robot from tipping over.