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Big Picture, Small Robot

A team of mechanical engineering researchers at Carnegie Mellon University has created Mugatu, the first steerable bipedal robot with only one motor. Watch this video to learn more.

Topics:
Automation Robotics

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    Transcript

    00:00:08 Aaron: This project is trying to make simple walking robots. We have what we think is the simplest walking robot consisting of just one actuator and two rigid bodies. There's two reasons we want to make these simple robots. One is to understand the fundamentals of locomotion. What are the principles that underlie locomotion of any animal or robot? And the second is so that we can make smaller robots. We need to have simpler designs in order to make smaller robots that can walk. So small robots are good at getting into small spaces. So if you have a small crack or crevice that's an entry into a collapsed building and they're

    00:00:42 also good at things like industrial inspection. So getting inside of a complicated machine and looking for damage. We call this the Lego Project because eventually we want to make something the size of a Lego minifig that can actually walk. James: The robot itself, it's inspired by passive dynamic walkers, which are these little like toys that walk down slopes with gravity. We got to use part of the Lego Walker project and the overarching goal of that project is to build walking robots at Lego minifigure size scales. And in order to do this, we investigated the question of how simple can we make walking as a behavior, so that it's just easier to scale down.

    00:01:19 We don't have to deal with complex mechanisms. The way that the robot works is it lifts its leg forward, and then by doing that, it shifts its center of gravity forward, so it falls onto its front foot. And then when it contacts the ground with the front foot, because of the, like, momentum forward, it allows it to shift onto that foot and give clearance for the next leg to swing through. And then as the next leg swings through, the center of gravity is shifted forward again and that kind of produces in self-sustaining walking mechanism. Kendall: I worked with a lot of the experimentation and got a lot of first initial numbers on cost of transport.

    00:01:53 So I used a lot of the motion capture system, which is kind of a system of 20 cameras that pretty much captures every angle of the robot. And we put markers on the walker so that the cameras can see each rigid body's movement, even about the hip axis. So you can get accurate numbers when trying to do data analysis later on. So eventually getting the numbers like cost of transport, what the most optimal frequency is when walking, and things like that. Aaron: I'm really excited about this project because we've really been able to simplify the design while still being able to have a robot that can start, stop, turn left, turn right, and maneuver around a space.