The First Robot to Catch Itself When It Falls #Robotics @Raspberry_Pi
Kris Hauser at Duke University is teaching humanoid robots to use their hands to stop themselves from falling. In an article by Ken Kingery, they describe their work with robotics post-DARPA challenge:
A famous viral video about the DARPA Robotics Challenge shows all sorts of humanoid robots clumsily falling down. Bipedal movement is rather unstable, which is not only a problem for a robot trying to complete its task, but also because falling can damage a very expensive piece of machinery.
We want robots to be able to do the same thing,” said Kris Hauser, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke. “We believe that we’re the only research group working on having a robot dynamically choose where to place its hands to prevent falling.”
The robot they are currently using appears to be a Raspberry Pi 3B+. They simplify the mathematical problem of how the robot looks to extend itself to ensure the computer has enough computational power to perform the calculations to catch itself in time – tricky stuff.
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