
The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s - tomohawk
https://www.thedrive.com/news/36157/the-us-army-spent-millions-developing-giant-six-legged-walking-trucks-in-the-1980s
======
Animats
Oh, that thing. Back when I was into legged locomotion, I found out more about
that machine than I ever wanted to know.

The designer was really into four-bar linkages. The leg mechanism is set up so
that one actuator moves the leg in X, one in Y, and one in Z, with a four-bar
linkage encoding that into the leg position. This simplifies the control
problem, while complicating the mechanics. I suspect they wanted to be able to
get the thing home by manual control of the actuators if the computers
crashed. It's not towable; you'd need a crane and a flatbed.

It could only walk on flat ground. It was supposed to be able to cross a
ditch, but that was manual. The driver had to drive it up to the ditch and
stop. Then lock five legs, and, using a joystick, move one of the leading legs
across the ditch and set it down. Then, with support in place, move the
vehicle forward slightly with no leg lifts. Then lock five legs again, and
place the second forward leg. Repeat until all six legs had made it across.

Cool, but not useful.

In the 1990s, a company in Finland got this right.[1] They built a six-legged
walking timber harvester. It's impressive. Deere bought the company But it's
not better than 8-wheel articulated timber harvesters [2], so it was never
produced as a product.

[1] [https://youtu.be/CD2V8GFqk_Y](https://youtu.be/CD2V8GFqk_Y)

[2] [https://youtu.be/BwCTDXatIYA](https://youtu.be/BwCTDXatIYA)

~~~
hutzlibu
About the timber harvester: I assume better here is meant from a economical
perspective, because from a ecological perspective the walkers are superior,
as they do not devestate the ground so much. But that is sadly not really a
issue for most wood production, but I could imagine, with rising awareness for
the forests, market demand for not so intrusive wood harvesting(along with
advances in the field in general) could bring the walking timber harvester
back.

I would very much welcome it. I really hate, having all the forests paths
messed up in the wood cutting season.

~~~
Meph504
Most timber today isn't harvested in natural forest, they are effectively tree
farms, they have a 10 to 20 year growth cycle and since all the trees planted
are harvestable, they basically clear cut the land, burn it, off cycle growth
as needed, and do it again.

In those instances, there is no ecological consideration as the whole area
basically gets wiped out.

~~~
ganafagol
That's not really accurate. It depends on the tree type, but the growth cycle
is somewhere between 50 to 100 years for optimal results.

It's true that most forests today are not old growth anymore. They have been
cut (usually clear cut) and then either replanted or just naturally reseeded
and are now essentially waiting for the next cut. There are some areas where
they are monocultural tree farms with not much else growing, but forest
industry starts to realize that that's not the most efficient anyway. Most
forests today, even those used for lumber (which are almost all) are
integrated ecosystems. That's a great benefit to nature.

Clear cutting is quite bad for the surrounding ecosystem. Habitat loss, soil
erosion, it's a pretty traumatic event for a forest. (Some shrubs really
thrive for a few years after a clear cut though. In Sweden that's when you get
to pick tons of wild raspberries, for example.)

An alternative is selective cutting where you only cut the oldest trees and
leave everything intact. For that, such a legged harvester would be much
better. The traditional method is to use horses, but that's too slow for
modern forest industry.

~~~
Meph504
I'm guessing you aren't from the U.S. but in the southern U.S. growing newer
species of Pine (variants of Loblolly Pine). A standard lease is 20 years from
seedling to harvest, some older variants can go 30 to 50, but you don't see
that being planted any longer and that's all leases maturing.

And here, I can assure you they are very much mono culture, evenly spaced,
engineered species of trees, almost nothing else happens on the land in that
time period. (generally it looks pretty similar to this
[https://a.rgbimg.com/users/p/pa/paparabbit/600/mwYGk8q.jpg](https://a.rgbimg.com/users/p/pa/paparabbit/600/mwYGk8q.jpg))
They do come and selectively thing at 5, 10, or 15 depending)

See the issue is, at least in the southern U.S. they clear cut nearly
everything in the 1800s. There is very little old growth left.

~~~
gvjddbnvdrbv
Yes they used to do forestry like that in Northern Europe. They realised the
methods described by the OP are more sustainable and more reliable (e.g.
diseases will wipe out monocultures).

~~~
Meph504
I agree with it being better for the world in a lot of ways. And I would like
to see it change, but it isn't likely to, at least not for a really long time.

P.S. As for mono culture timber, there is a reason almost no one in the US
knows what a curant is. They (are/were) illegal in the US, because they are
for a vector for a fungus that can wipe out timber pines.

------
gojomo
_Only_ millions? Amazing!

To actually deliver a physical, one-of-a-kind, working vehicle of that scale &
novel function, for low-digit millions, seems pretty impressive to me -
especially if the effort documented enough of their
choices/discoveries/limitations to help inform later efforts.

~~~
melling
yeah, a single M1 Abrams tank costs over $4 million, and we have 9000 of them.

DARPA R&D money always feels like money better spent than a lot of other
military spending. We get future dividends, often civilian.

~~~
Firehawke
Absolutely this. With the culling of most corporate R&D groups over the last
20-30 years, DARPA pie-in-the-sky research projects seem to be one of the last
real sources for investigating anything that can't be immediately and quickly
monetized.

~~~
ghaff
How much real research, as opposed to early-stage product development, has
_ever_ happened at corporations? We can easily name a few specific examples
(Bell Labs, Xerox PARC) presumably because they _weren 't_ the norm. (And
there were doubtless some others at companies that weren't as aligned with
what's thought of as today's tech industry such as DuPont.)

~~~
tasogare
Have a look at MSR.

~~~
ghaff
What about them? They make nice gear. They've done some nice innovation around
some of the gear they make. That seems different from pumping multi-millions
of dollars into research that may never have direct commercial value--unless
you're talking about a different MSR.

~~~
pedrosorio
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research)

------
robomartin
I have many books on on robotics and AI from Stanford and MIT from that era,
back when I started to get deeply involved in the field. My son is about a
year away from graduating with degrees in CS and Robotics. He was quite
surprised to realize that much of what he is learning today isn't new at all.
Tremendous work was done decades ago in both domains. Put simply, you can only
get so far with neural networks when your only option is an 8 bit
microprocessor with 64k-bytes of RAM and a a megabyte or two of non-volatile
storage.

One of the key differences between now and then is the monumental improvement
in computing power, sensors, hardware in general and energy storage. As a
result the devices we produce today look far more impressive. Think about it
this way: I don't think there's anything in a Roomba that did not exist in the
1980's other than far greater computing power at a very low cost.

It is an interesting exercise to look through the Old Robots site
(www.theoldrobots.com). One of my favorite's (because I owned one and still
have a couple of arms on the shelf) is the Hero 2000:

[http://www.theoldrobots.com/hero2k.html](http://www.theoldrobots.com/hero2k.html)

Check out the specifications here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERO_(robot)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERO_\(robot\))

It took an Intel 8088 processor and 11 Z-80 8 bit processors to run this thing
in the early 90's. That cost thousands of dollars. Today you can to a thousand
times more with a $5 to $30 single chip processor.

~~~
bigiain
> I don't think there's anything in a Roomba that did not exist in the 1980's
> other than far greater computing power at a very low cost.

High energy density batteries as well.

My off-brand Roomba clone uses 4 18650 lipo cells @40-50g each, a total of
~40WHr for under 200g.

That 40WHr would need about 1kg of lead acid battery, or maybe 7-800g of NiCad
battery.

~~~
robomartin
Yup. Correct. I did mention high energy density storage in my original
comment.

------
jasode
I just watched an interview with Vijay Kumar who worked on that robot when he
was a graduate student and talks about it for a few minutes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYsLTNXMl1Q&t=0m58s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYsLTNXMl1Q&t=0m58s)

The whole 1 hour interview is also interesting.

~~~
xiaolingxiao
Went to Penn and had no idea! On a related note Vijay's students are really
bright, and he's quite a savvy administrator.

------
momokoko
These are general purpose US funding of research which is done under the
"Military spending" banner for various reasons.

I understand how people outside the US might not understand this, but it
always surprises me complaints about "military spending" from educated
Americans that don't understand these are actually enormous investments by the
US government into general applied science.

The Army did not spend millions of dollars on a giant walking robot. The US
government, by way of military spending, invested in research of the things
required to build such a machine.

~~~
hiddencost
This is garbage nonsense.

You could just as easily manage this funding process somewhere else with
different priorities. We've been moving university research funding out of the
NSF towards defense budgets quite aggressively over the last two decades, and
it's quite palpable how shifting control of this funding from pure science
oversight to military oversight has reshaped priorities.

~~~
momokoko
[https://www.csis.org/analysis/wtos-first-ruling-national-
sec...](https://www.csis.org/analysis/wtos-first-ruling-national-security-
what-does-it-mean-united-states)

------
foobarbecue
I know someone who worked on a big radial hexapod robot for dod recently, and
he said everyone involved in the project felt it was pointless (hexapods are
just not a good platform for doing much of anything), but it was well-funded
so they did their best.

~~~
sho
> hexapods are just not a good platform for doing much of anything

Care to expand on this? There's an awful lot of insects with six legs that
seem to do OK. Maybe I've watched too much Patlabor/GitS but I would have
thought it a viable candidate for any number of mechanical platforms.

~~~
foobarbecue
Every actuator comes with a lot of overhead in terms of cost, mass,
complexity, and two more limbs don't offer much of an advantage over a
quadruped. Interesting point about insects, but this was a largeish vehicle.
How many large hexapod animals can you name?

------
myfonj
> Between the engine and the 18 variable displacement pumps [...] was a
> 100-pound flywheel. It spun up to 12,000 rpm and could store .25 kWh of
> energy. > The flywheel also allowed the vehicle to recuperate some energy
> from the pumps when the ASV came to a stop […] and ensured a smooth shutdown
> in case of a sudden loss of power.

------
oblio
I wonder what they could do with modern computers and modern materials
science. They would at least save a bunch of weight for the computers carried.

~~~
mschuster91
I would not be surprised if Boston Dynamics scaled up their dog to truck size
rather sooner than later.

~~~
taneq
They did one the size of a large horse, but for the complexity and cost, it
unfortunately didn’t seem to have much practical benefit over a semiautonomous
6-wheeler.

~~~
imtringued
Something like the Rheinmetall Mission Master was pretty much the expected
outcome.

------
iso1210
Hey, guys, you ever see that really old movie, Empire Strikes Back?

~~~
hellweaver666
If you go to the Clone Wars you'll see vehicles with six legs that look a lot
closer to this one!

~~~
uryga
they're called AT-TE for anyone who wants to google it

------
kjaftaedi
485lb payload.

Regardless of the design, it makes sense why they scrapped it.

~~~
bigiain
These days delivering that sort of payload with a hexacopter is only a
"stupidly expensive hobby grade" project.

(Though I'm not aware of any homebuilt multi rotors up in the 485lb plus a
~170lb pilot range. Yet.)

~~~
imtringued
These days? Car sized hexacopters have been vaporware for several decades.

~~~
bigiain
Person carrying multicopters are common enough on YouTube videos (at least
some of which probably aren’t fraudulent).

Give me $30k, and I’ll build you a multicopter capable of delivering a 500lb
payload 1km away made mostly out of hobby parts. It’s no longer rocket
science.

------
atum47
I've been talking about this kind of stuff with some friends. You can't just
tell reality from fiction by the news, anymore. Sometimes is a crappy
politician who you wouldn't believe act / say / do the things the news report
(I'm Brazilian by the way, I have grounds to say this). Some other times is
this crazy sci-fi things no one in a bar conversation would believe you if you
told them.

Go ahead, next time you're on bar with your friends (In a few months I think
the bar are going to be open - hope) tell them this exactly headline and see
how they react to it.

~~~
Judgmentality
> Go ahead, next time you're on bar with your friends (In a few months I think
> the bar are going to be open - hope) tell them this exactly headline and see
> how they react to it.

I don't think many Americans would doubt our military has funded all sorts of
crazy stuff. There are confirmed paid studies for mind control and attempting
to kill goats using telekinesis by the CIA.

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

It's even been made into a Hollywood movie, so this stuff isn't that fringe.
And the fringe stuff is _really_ weird.

~~~
082349872349872
Wow, that's up there with the premise of _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.

I tend to optimistically/pessimistically believe people are rational but
devious, and therefore believe that goat-staring is likely a way to launder
money that immediately leads people into talking about how silly attempted
telecapricide would be, instead of asking, no, really, what did you totally
not get compensated for not having done, the other 39 hours of the week?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23597523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23597523)

Bonus track:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuduj0yeV4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuduj0yeV4c)

------
bserge
Looks really cool and futuristic. I'm sure something much better and faster
could be built today, but wheeled/tracked machines are still superior.

It's actually impressive how versatile wheels are - a legged truck would have
to move _much_ faster and be able to cross some extreme terrain to be a better
choice than something with 4+ big wheels.

------
znpy
Uh, an early Metal Gear Rex?

~~~
porknubbins
Was just thinking how did Kojima not put this in a game.

------
ronanyeah
I wonder if this was related to the DARPA/ArmsTech partnership back on Shadow
Moses.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Came looking for this comment. Thank you.

------
bluthru
>I have contacted the University of Ohio's engineering department in an
attempt to gather more information.

You probably won't get very far considering that is a different university.

------
jzig
The DOD has also spent tens of millions on a web application to track
biological threats that will never see the light of day. I work on it :(

------
ganafagol
Anybody else thinking of the walkers from star wars when reading the headline?
I was a bit disappointed seeing the size as it promises "giant" which does not
really live up to star wars size expectations..

[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Walker](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Walker)

~~~
MayeulC
Well, not that kind of "giant", but I was thinking about Ghost in the shell's
tachikomas and fuchikomas.

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-IsysrqUlU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-IsysrqUlU)
(original tank fight scene, may spoil it a bit).

------
phendrenad2
Man, now I really want one of those computer boxes. Looks like the boards are
common, but the mil spec case might not be.

------
berkas1
...and so Star Wars AT-TE idea was born? :D

------
dang
Ivan Sutherland worked on something like this. Seems related?

[http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1983-six-legged-
hy...](http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1983-six-legged-hydraulic-
walker-ivan-sutherland-american/)

------
banmeagaindan2
I love it. Tachikomas!

------
JshWright
I'm surprised no one had mentioned the "Spidertron" that was included the
recent 1.0 release of Factorio.

------
efitz
You know we’re all thinking the same thing - where are the mechs?

~~~
myself248
Here:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/furrionexobionics/alpha...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/furrionexobionics/alpha-
mech-pilot-program)

~~~
lsllc
The "Hacksmith" recently spent time learning to pilot one of these, definitely
interesting and worth the watch:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3xtVxPWf6M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3xtVxPWf6M)

------
svnpenn
Wild wild west...

------
Texasian
It’s delightfully chonky and I love it.

------
madballster
This looks like straight out of Aliens, loading bay scene. Fantastic.

~~~
ovi256
Or Archer Crazy Cyborg vs. Space-Bot

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

------
feralimal
All that money won't spend itself!!

------
AniseAbyss
The things you can do when you don't have to tackle child poverty or provide
healthcare for all.

Its probably because of my Euro socialist identity but all I see is wasteful
spending.

~~~
lapsed_pacifist
The Eurozone (NATO) is protected from Russia and other aggressors by US
military spending, and trades along sea routes which are kept open by US
military spending, to list only two ways in which the EU benefits massively
from our tax dollars here in the US.

If the EU decided to allocate a proportional share to their common defense,
maybe the US would have less reason to be intervening overseas and could spend
some of our money here instead.

~~~
082349872349872
Too much global warming, and some of that trade might divert to sea routes
kept open (modulo Alyaska[1]?) by russian military spending...

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

[1] might this geomilitaristic argument fly as a US pro-environment domestic
argument?

------
tobyhinloopen
That website is just awful, why is shit like this even upvoted here?

