Flame robot has unstable balance
Flame, the robot of the Delft Biorobotics Lab of the (technical) university Delft, is not by nature stable, but like humans it constantly searches for balance. When it walks, for example, it needs both legs for stability. (tip: Heini Withagen of Mirabeau (Dutch))
Traditional robots have always stood with bent legs so they could lift both legs (not at the same time, of course) from any walking position and still remain standing. Humans can’t do that: if you take away a leg whilst walking, a human will keel right over. By implementing this natural algorithm the walk of this robot looks a lot more natural.
Future Vision by Erwin Van Lun on this article
Tools became engines. Engines became like robots. Robots are becoming like people. Sooner or later we won’t be able to tell the difference and we’ll have buddies who do exactly as we say, whom we can laugh with, and who can provide us with good advice. What a pamper planet it’s going to be!
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Reaction by Tom op Jan 28, 2009 06:52
It’s looks smooth and remotely natural, but its decades from being functional in the real world. All robots that are currently walking on two legs aren’t even remotely close to walking like we humans do. All the fantastic walking robots you see in videos scattered over the internet are robots walking on perfect surfaces, 90 procent of the time developed to hide the shortcommings of robots. Although it seems impressive a lot of tricks have been used. super flat surfaces, stairs with very precise heights (if the height is 5mm the robots drop like stones) and more. 2035 is far too optimistic
Tom (AI - student)