Boston Dynamics Big Dog (new video March 2008)

This thing is awesome. Watch it when it walks on ice, it can keep its balance no matter what. Almost looks cgi.

I can totaly see this being used in the military.

reminds me of the robotics in the mgs series from konami.

put some nukes on em and like some 35 foot tall feet and ballistics protection and it could be like a drone nuke package if well implemented and protected; yeah thats the premise of the mg series.

but in real life applications it could be usefull in some regards; im no special ops person and i haven't organized any missions but it looks like an applicable "something".

reply to post by Ausar


It would be able to bring supplies to soldiers in the field, freeing up manpower. You could also strap a guy to the top and get him out of danger.

Or strap a machine gun to the top and air-drop it into the middle of a city you don't like. It can carry 340lbs so far, which is a big gun and lots of ammo.

I can think of tons of great uses for this big dog/little horse. For starters, I would ride one to work. You can mount weapons on it, use it for unmanned recon, as a field ambulance, SAR, you could just strap c-4 to it and send 1,000 or so against an enemy position/emplacement/base. Waves of suicide robots. Now that is something that I think would get under insurgent's skin!

I wonder how much it costs per unit, and what the current range is.

This is totally bad@$$. But, at the same time, its scary. Too scary. I wonder what kind of algorithms they use to make itself recover itself from slips and falls. A very unique robot.

The military and public implications for this is astounding. Imagine using the same technology tied with the gyroscope control from a Segway. That would make one mean All-Terrain-Man-Vehicle.

WOW whats amazing is that it was carrying payload when walking on the ice!!

I have to say that thing is freakishly scary looking in the way that it moves. Very jerky yet unnaturally coordinated type movement.

I wonder how well it does at stepping over obstacles or climbing steep inclines.


[edit on 18-3-2008 by Heckman]

Originally posted by Heckman

I wonder how well it does at stepping over obstacles or climbing steep inclines.

It went up that hill pretty easy, wasn't a bad incline there.

George Lucas must be laughing at all of us....."See I told you, this is what the future would look like". I just can't wait for the R2 units.

Pretty amazing piece of technology there though.

I can see this as a very useful military weapon.

I left some plans in case the military is interested.






[edit on 19-3-2008 by earth2]

Hahaha! Ya, that's what I was thinking about. Of course, I want the one that has chain saws around its knee caps, armored necks, no doors underneath, and 10 anti-aircraft weapons.... Oh wait. Is it too late for me to add tactical nuclear weapons?

All kidding aside, watching this video is cool and scary at the same time. The 21st century is when SciFi becoming reality. Lets hope we don't have any Terminators, ED-209s, or NS-5s.

Pretty useful indeed, I wonder when they will be able to make it silent though. I could just imagine a fleet of those things buzzing their way across the desert, it would sound like a locust swarm was coming or something!

Always nice to see more videos of this bizarre contraption in action.


"You have parked on private property. You now have 15 seconds to comply."

If I saw that thing running around in the forest I'd be scared and would probably run away... lol.. .But that is some fine engineering... I had no idea they were so far advanced in this type of stuff... Thanks for the post I enjoyed it!

At first it looks like a guy walking backwards with his palms touching the floor.
But ya, it looks pretty cool. I like that Walker idea!

eUncleSam,

If I ever saw this in the forest, I would go into Ninja-mode and follow it to its homebase. You might find its routine test pathway. Then you can setup hidden cameras for its next run.

For all,

Do you know what would be more crazy? Its how easy Boston Dynamics' engineers can modify Big Dog's code to change on-the-fly from quadruped to bipdeal.

It reminds me of the movie Red Planet starring Val Kilmer. The human crew is accompanied by a multi-functional, -purpose, robot named 'AMEE' (Don't remember what AMEE stood for). AMEE was cool and creepy in the movie when it started to malfunction and play cat-and-mouse military games with the surviving crew.

I recommend watching Red Planet just to see AMEE in action. In a decade or so, Big Dog will probably be like AMEE. Lets hope the Three-Laws are enabled in this robot and its brain is wiped out every year to ensure its learning its checked to a minimum.

Finally, with the help from a friend, I was able to find the link to this new exo-skeleton being developed in Northern Utah. Check out the YouTube video:

www.youtube.com...

Its very cool and scary at the same time, like Big Dog. Imagine merging the two technologies together.