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发帖数: 925 | 1 http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/c
Chinese Quadruped Robot Takes Its First Steps
POSTED BY: Erico Guizzo / Mon, April 18, 2011
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frog china quadruped robot
Is this China's answer to BigDog?
Not quite. This is FROG, or Four-legged Robot for Optimal Gait, a quadruped
developed by Dr. Wei Wang's team at the Institute of Automation, part of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.
FROG is a research platform that Dr. Wang and his PhD students use to
develop and test quadruped gait control, gait transition, and other
locomotion algorithms. Unlike Boston Dynamics' BigDog, which can walk at a
fast pace alongside humans, FROG is a slower-moving machine, a prototype for
what Dr. Want hopes will be the endoskeleton of a robotic triceratops.
"I hope it can find entertainment applications in dinosaur museums or expos,
" he tells me.
FROG-I, the group's first version, is about 1 meter tall, weighs in at 55
kilograms, and uses DC motors. Each leg has two motors, one on the hip and
another on the knee -- so 8 actuated degrees of freedom in total. The robot
also has one passive compliant prismatic DOF at each toe. Sensing devices
include joint angle sensors, 3-axis acceleration sensor, 3-axis gyro sensor,
foot-ground contact sensors, and ultrasonic sensors. The robot also carries
a pan-tilt camera.
An on-board computer running real-time Linux performs sensing and actuator
control, and communicates with a host computer through a wireless connection
. The control mode relies on position control (current control). Power comes
through a tether.
frog china quadruped robot dinosaurDr. Wang says he decided to build FROG
for two reasons. First, because a year ago he received a triceratops
sculpture from a Chinese film director, who had recently worked on a
computer animated movie about dinosaurs and suggested that Dr. Wang should
design a walking triceratops robot. The second reason is that Dr. Wang's
daughter and her kindergarten friends are constantly asking him to built
robotic animals.
I ask Dr. Wang if he plans to make the robot capable of moving faster -- and
then perhaps challenge BigDog for a race?
"BigDog is marvelous," he says. "BigDog is hydraulic and our robot uses DC
motors -- I don't think our robot could have so high capabilities."
But he adds that this is "only preliminary research" and his group plans to
improve FROG if they have enough resources in the future. So who knows --
maybe Dr. Wang's daughter will ask him to build a Velociraptor next time?
Images and video: Institute of Automation/Chinese Academy of Sciences |
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