Wildcat robot from Boston Dynamics

Wildcat robot developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA. Reminds me of a horse. It does seem reasonably stable for 4 legs. For some reason it seems strange in my mind while watching it. Guess it is because it seems like an artificial animal.



Link to Boston Dynamics

reply to post by roadgravel


I tell yea, these things are getting creepier and creepier with each generation of robot.

Anyone else got the sickly feeling they may end up being chased by one of these things

Reminds me of the Gangnamstyle dance.

It runs nothing like a wildcat, or any other cat for that matter.
Cool though

Seems like the gallop of a horse. At one point it appears all 4 feet are off the ground.

reply to post by MDDoxs

Perhaps a lasso would be handy to have if you think you will get chased? I'd bet if you were to run through terrain like dry river bed with small and large rocks of varying height this thing will be highly ineffective, oh, unless it has few front/rear cannons attached to it and is firing them off.

It is actually cool to watch it but man does that engine make a lot of noise. It doesn't appear to like rolling either. There was a point at the end of its gallop where it seems to stop on its front legs by kind of planting the knees to the ground and then bouncing back up. You could hear the engine labor and sound like it was starving for fuel for a moment.

Interesting piece of hardware, wonder what the range on a tank of fuel is.

reply to post by evc1shop


I'm sure they are considering the noise after the design though. Get it to work, then silence it. The struggling I assumed were the motors straining to regain it's balance under pressure.

Anyone else got the sickly feeling they may end up being chased by one of these things

When these things start roaming it will be time to get poles, ropes and pickup trucks and go all Hatari on them.

reply to post by roadgravel


Pretty cool, but after hearing it's engine start up I thought it was going to cut the lawn.



Seriously - it did look pretty amazing galloping around.

roadgravel

Anyone else got the sickly feeling they may end up being chased by one of these things

When these things start roaming it will be time to get poles, ropes and pickup trucks and go all Hatari on them.

Imagine the sort of thing people would feel just hearing the buzz of a half dozen of these thing roaming the streets, controlled by a program designed to apprehend everything and work it out from there... oO

Eek, and you can't poke it in the eye to stop it bighting your arm off...

winofiend
reply to post by evc1shop

 

I'm sure they are considering the noise after the design though. Get it to work, then silence it. The struggling I assumed were the motors straining to regain it's balance under pressure.

You may be right about the struggling, the engine did not hiccup so much as it did bog down with the load of probably having to drive multiple mechanisms simultaneously in a concerted effort to right the beast.

The noise is an issue and they will probably work it out. It is unlikely they would swap out the gas engine for an electric motor (high torque, moderate RPM ) due to the weight of the batteries if it is to be effective and last more than a few minutes. Of course I could be wrong and maybe they would use a fleet of them under battery power to storm a fortified location and then rush in with real troops after the area is clear.

I kind of think it would be better to take them on than a real human troop in one of those militarized SUV things the police departments have been getting. Imagine throwing a bucket of paint or filling the air with paint spray to perhaps take out their visual systems. Maybe use aluminum paint(with real aluminum powder) to throw off the thermal imaging cameras, anything for an advantage. Don't forget a few good slams with brush bar on a pickup... or a aluminum bat, crowbar to the knees. We all should know about these technologies so if we ever need to combat them we can have options to try.

reply to post by evc1shop


I am thinking that unless this thing was to be wearing some very lightweight, but extremely tough armour, a jolt or two from a cattle prod might be good enough to drop the sucker. It's only got to give enough juice to short the ignition circuit after all, and that sucker will be as dead as a door nail.

roadgravel
For some reason it seems strange in my mind while watching it.

Because > Uncanny Valley

www.digitaltrends.com... dJkoA_g

One of these days these engineers will have a brain storm moment and realize that animals have feet and ankles for a very good reason. Until they achieve this awakening none of their robots will have true stability.

I guess it is early days yet.

P

I tend to think it's like they have to be able to outrun a human. So that eventaully they can be used for catching anyone who doesn't take the mark of the beast. They'll just send that robot after them. Or they eventually make it look like a moose or a deer and send it out into the woods as a survallence drone. It would essencially replace the game-warden. the game has become the warden. Or maybe a robot horse. That would be kinda neet. Have a horse that runs on gasoline. ha ha

reply to post by spartacus699

If they made it look like an animal that is likely to be poached and gave it some firepower and the ability to record video I bet they would catch a few unsuspecting poachers taking some leaded karma. I wouldn't mind them using it for such.

reply to post by kosmicjack


Thanks for the link. Quite interesting material to check into. Must be truth in it.

So cool!!

Anybody else thinking about throwing a saddle on one of these then hitting some dirt bike trails?

Oh look I just came up with a new motor sport. Ha ha.

reply to post by kosmicjack

interesting reading.
Thanks!

My rabbit hops around like that, same blank stare too.

I don't even want to think about the applications these will be used for. And I don't want to hear, "don't worry, it's only for carrying equipment for soldiers".

I think within even 5 or 10 years we'll see some very strange robots. Even potentially your first androids being sold. My thought is they probably want to start selling them as convenience tools. Like there's 117 million households in the US, x say 15,000 for your average driod who could act as a maid, buttler, nanny, cook, and grounds keeper. That would amount to: $1.75 Trillion dollars in sales. Plus it would create a whole new industry for jobs for regular people in terms of servicing them and maintaining them. I'm sure they're getting pretty egar to crack open that market. They're probably doing a lot of testing right now in terms of trying to get them to a point where they'd be useful in a house hold situation. Probably still a lot of refinement that has to happen first. But I think they could be a really useful tool. The only challenge though is once there's all these robots TPTB by that time are living on Elysium in orbit, and they want to get population reduction underway so they turn on skynet, it becomes aware (of people) on a certain level and all the robots start wiping out the people. I think it's gonna end up being our demise in the end.