The Robot Walk

The Robot Walk The Robot Walk The Robot Walk Jonathan Hurst, associate professor in the school of mechanical, industrial and manufacturing engineering at Oregon State University, has been involved in locomotion for as long as he can remember. Legos, the robotics club growing up, Carnegie Mellon, he says. Ive always been obsessed with the subject. Hed have to be. Trying to make robots walk like people takes time, and an acceptance of repeated failure. By Hursts assessment, the one hes working on now, ATRIAS, is the first machine to reproduce the basic physics of human walking. ATRIAS is a bipedal robot that I think is on its way to showing us the future, says Hurst, who previously worked on a bipedal robot named MABEL at Carnegie Mellon University. Were not trying to build a product to go in peoples homes with this. ATRIAS is both a vorfhrung in the real worldsomething that only existed in theorybut more importantly a learning platform.The coordinate configuration of the robot. Image Oregon State DRL Testing has had its share of positives and negatives. It would take a couple of steps and fall, he says. But its improved over time. Its been able to do well in stepping up and stepping down. I will also say that we didnt originally think about the turning, but that was one of the reasons it falls, because the orientation of the robot and the direction its going dont match. Inspired by the motion of animals, the key is for the roughly 160-pound robot, which has six motors, to be able to keep its balance. Distributed around the robot are the microcontroller boards they made. Each one of them locally picks up and interfaces with local sensors such as the encoders on the motors, he says. The amplifiers are Elmo motion control, with two motors on each leg, and theres a harmonic drive transmission on each of those. Motors are at the hip, with both motors cooperating to extend the legs.The ATRIAS robot and graphical user interface. Image Oregon State DRL Leg design is ana logous in many ways to a Pick and Place machine, he says. Were trying to match a theoretical model which is a spring mass model, he says. To do that when it impacts the ground you need low mass and low inertia. It has a safety tether on it because, if the robot falls, it breaks badly and the team doesnt want to constantly repair it. Some of the future applications from this work could be limbs for those who are physically challenged or robotically delivering packages to your front door. Robots can assist us far more than they do now, he says. Its exciting to landsee where the technology is heading. But Hurst again reminds that ATRIAS, powered by a lithium polymer battery, is still about exploration. Its not an application-oriented machine. ATRIAS is both a demonstration of something that once only existed in theory but, more importantly, a platform for further investigation. Eric Butterman is an independent writer.ATRIAS is both a demonstration in the real world- something that only existed in theory- but more importantly a learning platform.Prof. Jonathan Hurst, Orgeon State University