Homebrewed Robot Exoskeleton In Alaska

museumpeace writes "CNET has an article about a robotic exoskeleton ginned up by tinkerer from Alaska There are a few cool pictures. The audacity of Mr. Owens project, if you believe the article, compares to the efforts of the old Home Brew Computer Club when compared to the work of GE or Toyota. Inspiration here comes more from sci-fi and video games than from industrial competition. The article is a good roundup of MECHA related developments, some of which sprang from DARPA money, so I am glad at least a few of my tax dollars are having some real geek fun."

Dammit

I thought they found an ancient robot skeleton buried under the ice or something, it's been a long week.

This guy is certifiable.

To build an operational mecha as a hobby is one thing.

To build it outside in the friggin Alaskan winter... well, there's only one word for that:

OTAKU!!!

(which, by the way, is what is on my housemate's vanity plate, so I speak with first-hand knowlege)

FM! - (First Meme)

Well I for one, welcome our new Alaskan Mecha overlords.

Giant Robot Website Crushed By /.

Y'know, it occurs to me that this is someone you don't want to piss off with a slashdotting. He's developing the perfect retaliation suit!

Re:Giant Robot Website Crushed By /.

Sure, but once he straps on the jet engines... watch out! lol

Re:Giant Robot Website Crushed By /.

He can get on any plane he wants to. Who's going to stop MechaCarlos? Puny airport security guards? Bah! They are but the buzzing of flies to MechaCarlos!

Now, you get the TSA to hire Gundam, then we'll have security.

Sorry...

This is very cool, and geek-factor 11...

But, I have a feeling the first step is going to put this flat on it's face.

Anime-ish designs for Mecha (mobile suits) don't translate well into the real world.

If it were me, I would be looking to emulate some of the designs from the original MechWarrior series. They seem a bit more realistic.

Still, love to see this walk/work!

Re:Sorry...

But, I have a feeling the first step is going to put this flat on it's face.

Mr. Owens say he has addressed this by making sure the lower half weighs far more than the upper half, and some other design modifications. The whole thing (pic [com.com]) weighs a ton

Combine that with the Bear Proof Suit

http://www.nfb.ca/grizzly/suit.html

Now THAT would be cool.

I guess...

it gets lonely in Alaska. :-)

MechWars!

I hereby demand a battle royale to the death between the homebrewed robot exoskelton and this guy. [improb.com]

Obvious Anime Influence.

Cute addition there with the head crests a la "Patlabor." And yet I'm still rather disappointed. Where is the 14' energy sword? Jet boosters? Particle beam rifle? Facetious, yes, but it is strange that amid these dizzying technological advancements, humanity's achievements in the field of robotics, circa 2004, are analagous to the state of automotive technology circa 1904. Nevertheless, that is some pretty damn fine backyard engineering.

Techical knowledge is there, but not with this guy

The control problems are not trivial, and I doubt that this guy will be able to solve them. But a lot of these problems have already been solved by Sarcos [sarcos.com]. In particular, look at this page [sarcos.com], especially at the "Sensuit" and the "Large Arm."

The Large Arm is especially impressive, holding a freakin anvil like it was a stein of beer!

If you could build the whole body of the Sensuit to a large enough scale that the whole pilot can be encased in a haptic feedback harness, you'd have a viable mecha.

Limited Usefulness

The reason no one has ever actively pursued mecha is because they would be so inefficient. Tanks and such are built with a low profile, and if you ask frontline soldiers, they are only useful in limited roles. My army friend much prefers the new strykers because of their flexibility and reliability.

A mecha would be standing 20 feet in the battlefied, an open and tempting target to everything from bombers to tanks to helicopters and to RPGs. It would have limited mobility, be extremely difficult to keep in working condition, and will have less load capacity than its tracked or wheeled counterparts. In short, it would look cool, but would be a useless coffin.

In BattleTech, they make up for the obvious disadvantages of a mecha by giving them advantages over vehicles. Mecha are more reliable, more maneuvarable, able to take more damage and continue to function, and can carry more weapons. Even then, if you pit a balanced vehicle force against a balanced mecha force, ton for ton, credit for credit, the vehicles can easily overpower the mecha in most circumstances.

I don't want to discourage this backyard project. After all, how many inventions were made when there was no necessity, but a necessity was found at a later time? But I do want folks to exercise a bit of common sense. If mecha were such a great idea, we'd have used them in WWII. We certainly had the technology to build them back then.

Re:Limited Usefulness

From the looks of it, that thing should have no problem converting to a big-rig, thus being the best of both worlds!

Re:Limited Usefulness

Yeah but can a tank climb a building and snatch helicopters out of the air like king kong?

Re:Limited Usefulness

I'm not too sure where that figure of 20ft for the height comes from.

I don't think there is any inherent reason why powered exo-skeletons would need to be anything like that big and provided they are reliable and able to cope with much the same terrain as general infantry I think they'd be quite effective in any battle situation.

I would guess the benefits an effective exo-skeleton could bring are in increased carrying capacity for the solider allowing them to carry more food, ammunition etc which would allow them to operate longer in the field with less reliance on supply lines.

Another aim would be to design a skeleton which enabled the solider to move more quickly and over longer distances than would normally be possible and maybe provide some increased protection from unfriendly weaponary.

I don't think anyone is suggesting building giant robots because as you say they would just be too easy to target and destroy.

I am guessing again that the key components in such a suit would be a lightweight, reliable powersource which preferably doesn't need a massive amount of fuel and strong lightweight materials for the skeleton it's self - this is in addition to all the wizzery needed to actually get the skeleton to function in the first place.

Any army which does develop an effective exo skeleton would be able to field a very dangerous weapon indeed, something capable of deploying powerful firepower, fielded in dispersed units of hard to hit small units, capable of sustained attacks into your territory, able to be inserted quickly and secretly in helicopters, parachutes etc.

Re:Limited Usefulness

If you have a mech that's approaching 20 ft tall, then you can have a cockpit that allows a full range of motion for the pilot in a full-body haptic feedback harness. (See this site for a full-arm haptic harness [est-kl.com].) Short of a direct neural interface, this

Re:Limited Usefulness

Or how about disaster sites. Strong enough to pick up debris and slabs of concrete but agile enough to do it without knocking everything else onto victims.

That'd be cool anyhow. Even if it wouldn't be as fun as picking up your neighbor's house and hidin

Three words - Alaska Needs Women

The things men do when there are not enough women around. I guess it keeps his hands from going crazy on those long alaskan nights.

Other *Real* Mecha/Teleop links

• TOPS/CVM [nosc.mil]
• Immersion Haptic Workstation [immersion.com]
• Utah Dextrous Hand Master [utah.edu]
• Green Man [nosc.mil]

Forget this guy in the post. He clearly doesn't have a clue. But the problems have been largely solved in the past several decades with DARPA money.

If you put a full body haptic interface around someone strapped into a huge robotic body, you'd have it. (See the Immersion Corp link.) But the thing would have to be freaking huge. A full-body haptic cockpit would be something like a sphere 8' in diameter, implying a mecha 30 foot tall!

Perhaps have the cockpit controlling separate and much smaller mecha body remotely, and just have the haptic controls on one of those motion simulation platforms.

Re:Other *Real* Mecha/Teleop links

For one thing, you seem pretty unclear about what my other points are. (That the control technology already exists to do this, and that it's decades old. And that this guy doesn't seem to appreciate the control problems.)

You're putting words into my mou

How about some prize money...

Sure, it wouldn't be as "sexy" as the X-Prize, but wouldn't some privately sponsored prize money do wonders for this longtime human dream? Call it, say, the Mecha Prize, and offer a few million bucks to whoever builds the first mecha that can go a half mile, pick up a Dodge Neon and move it in the air for 50 feet, then return to the starting line. Or something similar.

I have no doubt that someone as creative as Rutan is out there, and with a little incentive and the promise of some real financial gain could use modern actuators and pressure pads and gyro sensors and so forth to finally create a useful mecha.

I also have no doubt that (unlike Spaceship One) a mecha that could complete the above test would immediately be of great value in quite a few industrial and/or emergency applications.

Motion Control

Owens said he can't afford top-of-the line equipment, like infrared sensors and electronics that would govern the motion. Instead he's using a hydraulic system to transfer the motion of his limbs to the larger structure,

It sounds like he's basically he's relying on his own sense of balance to control this thing. We do it unconsciously as adults, but it took us a long while to learn and a lot of falling down. It may be possible he's got everything figured out and the control is natural enough that he'll just climb in and start walking. Somehow, though, I imagine him lifting the first foot and getting his center of gravity outside the edges of the other foot. Then he's got to shake off the bruises, bring a crane over to lift the thing up and repeat until he gets the hang of it. That's assuming his hydraulics are fast enough and he has enough degrees of freedom to keep the thing balanced to begin with. Having a heavy legs like he mentioned will reduce, but not eliminate the danger of shifting the weight to far out.

This is way cool and it'd be awesome to see it work, but I'm officially a doubter.

Re:I disagree

He isn't getting any DARPA money.

From the article:

In all, the materials for the project have cost him $15,000 so far. Not bad for a killing (or at least potentially flame-throwing, car-mashing) machine.

That's a lot less than the $50 million that the