
Agility Robotics Raises $8M for Commercial Bipedal Robots - jonbaer
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/agility-robotics-raises-8-million-for-commercial-bipedal-robots
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cornellwright
When Jonathan Hurst (one of the cofounders) was getting his PhD, his lab was
next to mine. We got to (had to) listen to his enormous jumping leg bounce for
hours on end. At that point it was mounted on boom attached to a center pivot
and the robot wore a circle through the carpet.

It's so cool to see how far this project has come.

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thebiglebrewski
Haha that's amazing

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clairity
unfortunately they seem to have ignored statics and dynamics in the design of
cassie, which means the control system will be leaned on more heavily to keep
the robot balanced.

for example, the knees don't seem to passively lock like ours, which means it
will have to use energy to just stand up. and lacking good dynamics is
probably why we don't see it run (the control problem gets way harder).

(my masters was in locomotion biomechanics)

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aidenn0
Also, I doin't see the advantage of bipedalism for robots. We can build a 4
legged robot that still has arms, and dogs can go pretty much anywhere that
humans go. Quadrupedalism is much more stable (and hexapods are almost
trivially so, but I think a robot with 6 legs is more likely to freak people
out).

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clairity
yes, bipedalism is inherently harder. a tripod would probably be the optimal
legged robot. inherently statically stable but fewer corner cases for both
static and dynamic stability than even a quadruped. the odd number of legs
makes control a little harder though.

the cool thing about hexapods is that walking is basically using two sets of
tripods in alternating fashion (e.g., cockroaches do this at slow speeds). as
speed increases, they remove legs that touch the ground, going from hexapod,
to quadruped, to biped at the highest speeds.

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aidenn0
I hadn't thought about tripods, since they are (largely?) absent in nature. Do
you have examples of what a tripod walking or running stride would look like?

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clairity
i vaguely remember it being mentioned in something i read long ago. i think
it'd be 1-2-3-1-2-3 for walking and (1,2)-3-(1,2)-3 for running or even
1-2-1-2 (bipedal) for the fastest running.

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etrautmann
Are walking robots required for package delivery and/or working around humans?
Seems like a difficult solution to the easier part of a problem thats
difficult for other reasons like SLAM, etc

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harperlee
Stairs come to mind.

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pryelluw
Buildings are designed around the movement abilities of humans. Having a robot
that is able to function with similar abilities makes sense. Robots are meant
to adapt to us, not us to them.

What I've always thought is how people will perceive walking around robots.
Scenes from Star Wars comes to mind. Will robots need their own service
corridors in order to not scare people?

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daveguy
They have several videos on their YouTube page if you want to see one in
action:

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN-StetwWuVYf-
MU2_NVj4A](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN-StetwWuVYf-MU2_NVj4A)

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navaati
That's ridiculous but this one [1] has a bit of a scary thing to it, with the
two bots walking towards you in the beginning…

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS18SeuMqtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS18SeuMqtA)

EDIT: Ah, probably because I was listening without sound. The music makes it
less menacing (clever them).

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aidenn0
Someone needs to remix that with a menacing soundtrack (The shark's theme from
Jaws or maybe Orf's "O Fortuna." I'm open to other suggestions).

[edit] Adding foley of menacing clanking sounds on each step and robotic whirs
is a bonus.

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Ancalagon
I can just imagine the insurance and rates of theft of these things. Super
cool concept, but just like drones, I imagine a bipedal robot would would be
too easy to break/steal without much real consequence.

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j2bax
I mean, if you are brave enough to steal something that is likely highly
tracked not to mention has the ability to kick your ass...

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rubidium
three systems problems I'd like to see addressed, from simple to complex.

1) Getting stuck. I can imagine multiple situations where the environment
changing leads to "stuck" situations.

2) Need to be aware of surroundings on par with human beings. No stepping on
dogs or small children when walking up your front steps to drop off the mail.

3) human interaction: the "last 100 feet" is usually "my front porch and
lawn". Ownership, control, and navigating human interactions are real issues
there.

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lawlessone
They look like walking pants.

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TheSpiceIsLife
I’d imagine having very little weight above the hips would make the whole
bipedal walking problem a fair bit simpler.

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jpm_sd
So excited about this! Not convinced that "Cassie" actually fits a market
need, but that remains to be seen. Certainly it's the best-executed biped
design to date.

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Animats
Probably not enough money. It took $120 million to get to Boston Dynamics' Big
Dog.

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exhilaration
Boston Dynamics' Big Dog was built in 2005 [1], I'd imagine the cost today
would be dramatically lower, no?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigDog)

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anodari
It remembers the Robocop's robots.

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abledon
HL-2 Begins.

