Untethered, battery-powered, and able to traverse a variety of terrains, these remote-controlled bipedal robots are designed for everything from search-and-rescue situations, to telepresence, to grocery delivery. They also walk a little like ostriches. They’re dynamic walkers invented by Agility Robotics, a company that evolved out of technologies developed at Oregon State University. The February 2017 video below provides some background on Cassie, a descendant of the team’s ATRIAS bot. From ieee Spectrum:
…if Cassie looks a bit more like an ostrich than a human, it wasn’t because Agility Robotics was specifically trying for an ostrichlike robot: They don’t want to necessarily mimic the morphology of animals, although they do study animal behavior and dynamics for inspiration and insights. So while ground-running birds may have had the idea first, Agility Robotics intelligently designed Cassie to be agile, efficient, and robust, and this is the leg that they came up with.
And here’s a quick peek at how they’re assembled:
Watch more videos: Boston Dynamics’ SpotMini robot and Atlas robot, Madeline the Robot Tamer & Mimus, and the animatronic animals of Spy in the Wild.
This Webby award-winning video collection exists to help teachers, librarians, and families spark kid wonder and curiosity. TKSST features smarter, more meaningful content than what's usually served up by YouTube's algorithms, and amplifies the creators who make that content.
Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.