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Is this where Boston Robotics comes in?

For heavy load, they have wild cat[wildcat] and for lighter loads, they have spot [spot]. For Ussain Bolt, there is the cheetah [cheetah] that can keep up with the pace peaking at over 29 miles per hour. All these are at various stages in development and as far as I understand not ready for production.

spot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3fmFTtP9g

wildcat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3fmFTtP9g

cheetah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chPanW0QWhA

⬐ Dylan16807

If you're hiking, maybe. If you're doing almost anything else a platform with wheels should suffice at a tiny fraction of the cost.

That's not Boston Dynamics' Cheetah. This is.[1] This new video is MIT's cheetah. It's good to see MIT doing serious legged locomotion work again. Things stalled out there after Raibert left and Gil Pratt took over. Looks like DARPA is funding MIT, now that Google bought Boston Dynamics and stopped taking DoD contracts.

Not sure why they chose a pronk gait, except that they're doing all straight line work. A gallop has more turn options, but roll control is easier for the pronk. Hopping over an obstacle has been done before, by some of the early MIT planar bipeds.[2]

It took about $125 million in DoD funding to get a usable Big Dog and Atlas. It's quite possible to do a lot more in legged robotics, but it is not yet cheap. It's still not clear if Google will achieve commercial legged robots, or decide to "put more wood behind fewer arrows" again and focus on their core business, advertising. The commercial payoff is a long way ahead.

Academic projects rarely have the funding and staff to get beyond the demo level. You need some big assets, like machine shops and skilled machinists. Note that they're borrowing MIT's gym. To get real work done, you need full time access to your own test area. It's hard to get that on a college campus. The typical academic robotics project is one professor and three grad students.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chPanW0QWhA [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFXj81mvInc

I also forgot to point out that their robot is capable of running in a staggered manner [1] and the results are much cleaner than non-staggered action [2]. You can practically feel the second robot nearly tear itself apart even at lower speeds.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TXOHAVuS5Q&t=65

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chPanW0QWhA

Well, the article at least acknowledges how questionable this application of the term is.

"Whether or not this really is a legged robot (or a quadruped) is perhaps debatable: these are wheel-legs, more commonly known as whegs."

I was certainly expecting/hoping for something more like Boston Dynamics cheetah [0].

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chPanW0QWhA