MABEL the running robot have been training hard, grabbing the title of “fastest bipedal robot with knees.” Like all great sports star, it has been tormented by many dream-crushing obstacles and injuries , but this time it’s done it: running at a speed of 6.8 miles per hour on a track. Jessy Grizzle, professor on the University of Michigan’s Department of electric Engineering and Computer Science, attributes this bot’s success to its human-like weight distribution — a heavier torso and versatile legs with springs identical to tendons for movement “like a true runner.” This bipedal technology, that can mimic a human’s ability to run and climb over obstacles, can be utilized to assist the disabled walk again, in rescue situations or because the basis of future vehicles that do not require roads or wheels to drive. If MABEL doesn’t make the SWAT team this year, it may most likely snag a niche as yet another within the next Transformers movie. Take a look at the PR and video of this contemporary day robo-Flo-Jo after the break.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.-A robot in a college of Michigan lab can run like a human-a feat that represents the peak of agility and efficiency for a two-legged machine. With a peak pace of 6.8 miles per hour, MABEL is assumed to be the world’s fastest bipedal robot with knees.
“It’s stunning,” said Jessy Grizzle, a professor within the Department of electric Engineering and Computer Science. “i haven’t seen a machine doing a motion like this.”
MABEL was in-built 2008 in collaboration with Jonathan Hurst, who was then a doctoral student on the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Grizzle and U-M doctoral students Koushil Sreenath and Hae-Won Park have spent the years since ratcheting up MABEL’s training. They have been progressively improving the feedback algorithms that enable the robot to maintain its balance while reacting to its environment in real time.
MABEL started out walking smoothly and quickly over flat surfaces. Then it moved directly to uneven ground. It took its first real jog in late July, and with that, Sreenath met the final goal of his research just days before he was scheduled to defend his thesis.
Few robots can run, and the researchers say no machine but MABEL can do it with this kind of human-like gait. Its weight is sent like a person’s. It has a heavier torso and light-weight, flexible legs with springs that act like tendons. MABEL is within the air for 40 percent of every stride, “like an actual runner,” Grizzle said. Other running robots are almost speed-walking. Their so-called flight phase when both feet are off the bottom lasts for only 10 percent of every step.
“We envision some extraordinary potential applications for legged robot research: exoskeletons that enable wheelchair-bound people to stroll again or that give rescuers super-human abilities, and powered prosthetic limbs that behave like their biological counterparts,” said developer Hurst, who’s now an assistant professor within the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University.
Two-legged robots with good running form would even have the benefit of with the ability to travel over rough terrain and inside places built for humans. They might one-day function robotic soldiers or rescuers, the engineers say.
“The robotics community was seeking to provide you with machines that will go places where humans can go, so a human morphology is vital,” Grizzle said. “In order for you to send in robots to go looking for folks when a home is on fire, it probably has to be ready to go up and down stairs, step over the baby’s toys at the floor, and maneuver in an atmosphere where wheels and tracks is probably not appropriate.”
Wheels are a good way to transport across flat surfaces, Sreenath said, but if the bottom gets rocky, two legs are way more efficient.
“Imagine a future where you do not have to first clear a path and build roads before a vehicle could move around,” Sreenath said, “but rather, we now have a category of running machines like animals which can transport you around without a roads, but with a smooth and efficient ride.”
Watch MABEL run at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlOwk6_xpWo. The bar it’s attached to merely guides it to maneuver in a circle. You will see it accelerate after which abruptly decelerate several times. Its controller does this on purpose.
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