Robots: Working Like a Dog

My next door neighbor has four dogs. Which to my way of thinking is about four too many. The reason why is that with all the barking they do -- day and night -- it sounds like 40 dogs instead of 4.

Which is just one reason why I like Stefan Schaal's dogs a lot more. Schall, who is a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, builds four-legged dogs that are able to negotiate uneven, treacherous, and difficult terrain. If if he can program to do that, you can bet he can program them to be quiet about it.

But from what I can tell, Schaal is more worried about the mobility issues, than the audible ones.

"What you really want legged robots for is to negotiate difficult terrain," he says. "This project is designed to push that envelop."

To do this, the robotic dog calculates where and how it should proceed, "based on the current position, velocity, and acceleration" of its legs. If one effort fails, the dog learns from its mistakes and tries another route the next time.

After 15 months of experimentation -- sending back mechanical dog bodies to Boston Dynamics (which is building the robots that Schaal designs) at a rate of about one per month, but saving each one’s digital electronic experience -- Schaal's dogs can move at 1.6 centimeters a second. His goal is to triple the speed and double the difficulty of the terrain.

What about making them bark? "Once they can run, I’ll bark for them," Schaal says.

Fine, but don't move in next door to me.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 12:00 PM  Permalink