A new hopping robot under development at Boston Dynamics. Although it looks like a little radio-controlled car, it conceals an unusual secret. It can jump over obstacles fifty times its own size. The final version will be able to navigate autonomously and jump over obstacles of 25 feet or more.
“The Precision Urban Hopper is part of a broad effort to bolster the capabilities of troops and special forces engaged in urban combat, giving them new ways to operate unfettered in the urban canyon,” Jon Salton, Sandia National Laboratories program manager, said in a statement.
The demonstrated hopping capability of the robots allows the small unmanned ground vehicles to overcome as many as 30 obstacles that are 40-60 times their own size. Hopping mobility has been shown to be five times more efficient than hovering when traversing obstacles at heights under 33 feet (10 meters), which allows longer station-keeping time for the same amount of fuel.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Military creates hopping-mad robot.
Something wicked this way hops.... From Live Science:
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2 comments:
I saw this on The Rachel Maddow Show...it's really cool. They also showed some other military/spy type robots which were creepy.
If we let the robots hop, next year it'll be the twist, then the shimmy. Soon we will have robots corrupting our children with their rock and roll!
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