Dr. Octopus might be FICTION NO MORE !!
Why do we need robots? A simple enough question with a simple answer – to ease the life of humans and share part of the workload (if you are in NUS though, workload might be interpreted in many ways). In recent years, with the rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence & Robotics, robots no longer remain a term fit for science-fiction movies. But still, a basic problem remains. Most of the models are designed to run on wheels or tracks. This works well in a living room maybe, but what about the world beyond that??
Robots have undoubtedly been inspired by humans. They are built to imitate human ability to talk, to see, to hear and to move. But there might be a cliché, have you seen any breed of humans with wheels instead of legs? The answer would be ‘NO’ for most of us (it is, at least to me). So the important inference is that if we want robots to be efficient and useful, they must have the ability to walk on uneven terrain. The next obvious question will be “How do we do that?” The answer to this might not be too far to seek as humans and animals both have the ability to travel on uneven terrain and robots have simply to imitate that. Undoubtedly, building a walking robot is no child’s play. That is the reason why BigDog created a YouTube sensation a couple of years back.
BigDog is now being being upgraded to LS3 which, upon development, will be used by the US military to offload weapons, ammunitions, back packs etc. from soldiers’ backs. The key trait of BigDog (which will be true for LS3 in the future) was its ability to adjust to multiple rough terrains and lateral forces (like nudges or pushes) automatically without intervention or help.
But still, BigDog was a four-legged beast and not a two-legged gentleman. However, University of Michigan researchers have come up with the answer to that problem – MABEL. MABEL, currently the world’s fastest bipedal robot with knees, might not be the first of its kind. But it has considerable advantages over others in the category.
MABEL has clocked a record speed of 6.8 miles per hour which is almost twice the speed at which an average human walks. It can switch between running and walking like a normal person. Even though it is 2 legged, its feedback algorithms allow it to balance itself even on uneven terrain. MABEL is designed to have almost a human physiology — her weight is distributed like a human’s namely she has a heavier torso and “light, flexible legs with springs that act like tendons”.
Another big step forward in MABEL’s case is its air time while walking. Like a real runner, MABEL is in the air for approximately 40% of each stride. In all other walking robots, this air time is less than 10%.
What is really interesting to note are the possibilities that MABEL has opened up. Hurst, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University, says that MABEL’s achievement could have implications for the development of human exoskeletons. He says: “We envision some extraordinary potential applications for legged robot research: exoskeletons that enable wheelchair-bound people to walk again or that give rescuers super-human abilities, and powered prosthetic limbs that behave like their biological counterparts.” For SpiderMan fans, this literally translates to a real living Dr. Octopus.
Another more immediate application would be the creation of so-called “robot rescuers”. Firemen may expect some job cuts as MABEL family might be out to replace them.
“The robotics community has been trying to come up with machines that can go places where humans can go, so a human morphology is important. If you would like to send in robots to search for people when a house is on fire, it probably needs to be able to go up and down stairs, step over the baby’s toys on the floor, and manoeuvre in an environment where wheels and tracks may not be appropriate.”
MABEL might just be the right bot for the job. Just imagining the impact that these robots will have on the human population and the world, as a whole can be mid-boggling. And we can be sure that in the future, Artificial Intelligence & Robotics will continue to enthral us with their path-breaking inventions.
