TAG Boston Dynamics

Content tagged with "Boston Dynamics"

Robotics: Mon, April 20, 2009
Boston Dynamics to develop two-legged humanoid (and a new hopping robot in their spare time)
Blog Post: Boston Dynamics, makers of our beloved BigDog robot, have just announced their newest project: to build a bipedal humanoid robot called PETMAN. As part of a $26.3M Army contract, the Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin will be "the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person.â''
petman.jpg
A rendering of PETMAN in its test chamber. Image courtesy Boston Dynamics.
PETMAN is designed to test the suits used by soldiers to protect themselves against chemical warfare agents. It has to be capable of moving just like a soldier -- walking, running, bending, reaching, army crawling …
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Robotics: Fri, March 13, 2009
Sweet high-definition robot videos from Boston Dynamics
Blog Post: Like iRobot, the good folks at Boston Dynamics (makers of the famous Big Dog and other awesome robots) have created their own YouTube channel. More importantly, all their videos are there in high-definition (after you start playing, click on the "HD" button in the bottom of the YouTube window), making for a superior creepy-robot-watching experience. Though Big Dog is the most famous of Boston Dynamics's technology, their other robots (like Little Dog and RHex) make an appearance as well. This one, below, is an example of a video that looks great in high def and it's also one I …
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Robotics: Tue, October 28, 2008
Industry news roundup: Boston Dynamics, iRobot, and Willow Garage
Blog Post: Two new items and one I should have mentioned a long time ago:
  • Boston Dynamics, of BigDog fame, looks likely to get a new contract from DARPA to build the next gen of their creepy yet awesome quadruped. Though the proposals aren't due till next year (and take it from a defense contractor, these things tend to be delayed even more), the specs appear to be tailored for the Big Dog design and Boston Dynamics is certainly the best contender. The solicitation, titled "Legged Squad Support System (LS3)", specifies improvements to terrain handling features, increased payload capabilities, …
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Robotics: Fri, June 13, 2008
Bio-inspired robotics meeting has moth-driven robot, fish simulation, BigDog, more
Blog Post: The fourth meeting on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM) took place at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, last week. Automaton contributor John Bender, a postdoc in biology at Case, has the highlights:
AMAM 2008 was a one-week, single-track conference, including four keynotes, over 70 posters, and a "robot zoo" populated by a menagerie of mobile machines. The coffee break buzz indicated that most of the 150 attendees found the meeting to be a superb confluence of the cutting edge in bio-inspired robotics. Locomotion specialists from both biology and engineering were well represented, and the meeting continually …
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Robotics: Fri, August 17, 2007
It's not about the dog's hardware!
Blog Post: A report from our correspondent Sally Adee, who earlier this month was at DARPATech, the Pentagon's R&D extravaganza, where she met, among other creatures, a little robotic dog called, well, Little Dog:
This little guy was all the rage at the DARPATech 2007 exhibit hall. â''Can I pet him?â'' a girl asked the researchers standing next to it. â''No,â'' they told her. â''Can I have him?â'' she insisted. â''No, sorry." She thought about it for a minute. â''Can I talk to him?â'' she finally asked. â''Well, you could,â'' the researchers …
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