Quadruped Robot: "Big Dog"

This link was recommended to me, and I thought you guys might like to see it as well. The video of the robot fascinated me -- at first I thought it was a prank, done by two people. But it's not... you get closeups of the machine.

The most interesting thing is the way they solved the "sudden blow" problem -- the corssover gait is the same mechanism that animals use to recover from a stumble or a push.

Click on the video link on the right of the page (main page has basic information on the machine and the team)
www.bdi.com...

Their other products are pretty intriguing, too.

[edit on 20-11-2006 by Byrd]

Aren't they deploying these in limited numbers in Afghanistan and Iraq for testing? I thought I heard something about that on the news a few months back.

Anyway, the technology is quite neat as is the video, thx for posting.

Biomimetics ftw!!!1!!1111

The military is using a number of robots... but not this one. It's noisy (for one thing) and can't get far from a power source.

Here's some of the bots they use:
www.decaturdaily.com...

So thats where they get the sound for that annoying 'Zap the bug' advert...

Pretty amazing seeing it self correct when it's been kicked. I'm definite this has been on here before, but not sure about the video. I don't see its use in military situations when it's tha loud. The people near it in the video have to wear mufflers over there ears! Is this similar technology to the starfish robot or something completely different? It just looks so realistic when it stops itself falling over.

Here's the thread from before about the same robot, but it looks like they are a bit more advanced now.

[edit on 21/11/06 by byhiniur]