Robot Unravels the Mystery of Walking

manchineel writes with a link to a BBC article on the lessons learned from a project in locomotive robotics. 'Runbot', as it is known, is the result of a modern technology combined with a 1930s physiology study into human locomotion. The study found that walking is largely an automatic process; we only engage our brains when we have to navigate around an obstacle or deal with rough terrain. "The basic walking steps of Runbot, which has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe, are controlled by reflex information received by peripheral sensors on the joints and feet of the robot, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the pitch of the machine. These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of local circuits - which analyse the information and make adjustments to the gait of the robot in real time."

Crawl before walk

[A non-mouse Coward]

Don't we need a crawlbot before a runbot, or did I miss something here?

Re:hmm

[Tree131]

Because chewing is probably another automatic process that, takes up 100% CPU which leads to walking being stifled and user coming to a complete stop until a kill command is issued.

Frist psot

[cnettel]

Now, if someone could just describe the finger-arm reflexes needed to make a first comment post and implement that in some kind of program or robot thingy...

learn from mistakes

[A non-mouse Coward]

FTA:

He said Runbot learned from its mistakes, much in the same way as a human baby.

How much are the replacement hands that touch the stove?

Mixed signals

[langelgjm]

I'm getting some mixed signals from this article:

"How does Runbot walk?"

"The basic walking steps of Runbot"

"When Runbot first encounters a slope these low level control circuits 'believe' they can continue to walk up the slope without having to change anything."

"Runbot walks in a very different way from robots like Asimo, star of the Honda TV adverts, said Prof Woergoetter."

"The first step in building Runbot was creating a biomechanical frame that could support passive walking patterns."

"So using the information from its local circuits Runbot can walk on flat surfaces at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second."

"Prof Woergoetter said Runbot was able to learn new walking patterns after only a few trials."

"Runbot is a small, biped robot which can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human."

And last but not least:

"Four other scientists - Poramate Manoonpong, Tao Geng, Tomas Kulvicius and Bernd Porr - are also involved in the project, which has been running for the last four years."

Sorry guys, but it really isn't living up to it's name.

Walking Research

[Strange Ranger]

The British have been working on this for years!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w [youtube.com]

It's nice to see the Runbot "has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe".

Re:Obvious?

[MORB]

imagine a beowulf cluster of human brains!

That's called Internet, and the results have been mixed so far.

Great;_What_Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about sex?
When will they automate that?

Re:Obvious?

[blhack]

The Matrix wasn't a beowulf cluster, it was a myspace clone.

Re:Backyard ant experiment

[ilikejam]

This is either a sign of a misspent youth, or excessive post-grad funding.

The mystery of falling over. . .

[Slicebo]

This weekend (with my bottle of tequila) I'll be testing the mystery of falling over.

Re:Cats do more or less the same thing

[D-Cypell]

Great! Another reason to distrust cats! As if having 9 lives, yet the possibility of existing in some kind of half dead/half alive quantum state and to also be gifted with the pure lack of modestry required to sit in a public place and lick your own nuts wasn't enough! Now I know that you can mangle up their legs, severing contact between brain and muscle and the fucking things can still do 40 minutes of cardio!

Re:Backyard ant experiment

[iluvcapra]

In other words, misspent youth.

Re:Planar Walker i.e. 2D only

[bytemap]

Interestingly, because of your post, the fourth link on the google search is now this page.

Re:Backyard ant experiment

[iknowcss]

What are you doing posting these kinds of things on slashdot? Some one out there might actually go into their back yard with a grey razor knife, struggle to catch an ant, saw its little head off, and then watch as it behaves exactly like this post suggests.

Dammit I need to get better at cutting the head of without cutting the front two legs off. Err .. I mean ...

I prefer the Wabian-2

[pcgabe]

More natural-looking (albeit slower) performance from the Wabian-2. [waseda.ac.jp]

Swiveling hips are the way of the future. ^_^ Here is a demonstration video. [youtube.com] (The giant mech shooting balls at people afterward is unrelated...)

Also check out the related robot Kiyomori. [kiyomori.jp] Because nothing says "We are here to protect you" like traditional armor and GLOWING EYES.

I thought it said wanking

[Anonymous Coward]

was an automatic process.

Re:Crawl before walk

[TapeCutter]

"What would really catch my attention is a robot that gradually learns how to crawl, walk and run on its own, from scratch, just like humans do."

Except that 18yrs later it gets drunk and smashes your flying-car forcing you go down to the station in the middle of the night where you get to deal with the cop-bots, admin-bots, legal-bots, insurance-bots,...