Dynamic legged robots for rough terrain

Abstract

Summary form only given. Only about half the Earth's landmass is accessible to wheeled and tracked vehicles, yet people and animals can go almost everywhere on foot. Our goal is to harness the power of legs to create robot vehicles that can go where legged animals and people can go. These systems combine dynamic control systems, actuated mechanisms and a variety of sensors to travel on rough terrain that is too rocky, sandy, muddy, snowy and wet for existing conventional vehicles. Raibert will talk about progress at Boston Dynamics in building such systems, including BigDog, PETMAN, LS3 and others.