Towards the robots of science fiction

[Music]

[Applause]

robots

have long imagined a world where you

could

go out and explore the cosmos remotely

where you could have a system that would

help you restore mobility

restore function in systems that would

enable you to do things like monitor

wildfires and address them instantly

right

there’s a long history of our

imagination running wild with what

robots could do

right this is documented in science

fiction going back to the 50s and before

by greats like asthma then heinlein and

clark

and the idea was robots could be there

to be better versions of ourselves to

make our lives better

where are we today with robotic systems

well there’s been incredible

gains that have been made in the last

five or ten years we have

robots from companies like boston

dynamics that are running outside that

are doing backflips

this is really incredible this is

something that i couldn’t have imagined

20 years ago right and you’ve all seen

these videos probably really incredible

stuff

not only that but we have robots that

are going to start to explore the cosmos

we already have rovers on mars

we have a humanoid robot on the space

station going above our heads

and we’re going to be sending a

helicopter to mars in 2020

so we’re starting to take robots and

extend ourselves through them

finally we’re starting to see robots

helping people live better lives

so this is by rewalk it’s a lower body

exoskeleton for paraplegics

this is a paraplegic walking in the

device with the aid of some crutches

and again this is what we want to do we

want to use this power this technology

in a positive way to help people live

better lives but there’s one important

point here that all these videos don’t

show

so what’s the secret below at all well

first

in the context of this exoskeleton

there’s a hint

the hint is that it requires crutches

why does it require crutches it because

all the videos you just saw

however amazing they are were the one

time it worked

after a thousand times of trying to make

it work

so boston dynamics i give them a ton of

credit because they show

outtakes of when it didn’t work on their

robots

so it gets worse this is a bad day it’s

a bad robot day

so we also have the backflip which was

amazing and here’s some outtakes from

the backflip

again these are the thousands of runs

that you run before it finally works the

way it should

and just to make it clear i’m not

picking on everyone else but myself

here’s a robot at caltech cassie this

was built by agility robotics but we’ll

be running our own algorithms on it

and we we’re like let’s demo this so

some kids were outside of our building

and we put it in front of the kids and

they got really excited and they were

taking pictures and this is all

wonderful

and then just a face plant

so i’m not immune to this the fact that

it takes a lot of work to get robots to

work

[Laughter]

there’s a grad student running in i was

there i didn’t make it in it was my grad

student that came in to save the day

so so where does this put everything

what’s the point of this the point of

this is twofold first

we imagine robots doing all these

amazing things why aren’t they doing

them today

and i would argue the big thing that’s

happening is there’s a gap right now

there’s a gap between what we understand

mathematically about the world and about

robots

and what we can actually get robots to

do

and the ultimate goal of getting robots

into the real world is to bridge this

gap

to bridge this understanding so that

when we do something we can put it on

the robot it will work the first time

every time and at the core of making

that happen

is mathematics so let me get slightly

technical for one second

and explain this process of what robots

look like and why it matters well it

matters again because we can get it on

robots that walk outside

we can get it on robotic assisted

devices but we have to start

at the mathematical level so let me just

give you a microcosm we always see

robots doing these amazing things what

actually goes on here how do we actually

make these robots do things

well the first thing you have to do is

start with the equations you have to

start with the math

the physics describing the system so

what you see on the screen behind me

is a small set uh just a little

component of the equations describing

the robot in the picture these equations

are hundreds of megabytes long

they’re massive and they’re all

complicated you can’t really see it here

but they’re signs and cosines and

squares they’re non-linear

they’re really daunting in their

complexity so we have to start with

those though because those govern the

forward evolution of the system

once we take those equations we pair it

with what we think

walking should look like so models of

locomotion let’s say

and then what theorems do is they take

all that mathematics

and they distill it down to the essence

the understanding of what walking in

locomotion really

is and we mathematically prove that in

fact we can generate this walking on

robots

now that math is great of course how do

we get it to work in practice is the

real question

well what math really does is it gives

algorithms those algorithms

which you see running here in this

little screenshot generate the walking

behaviors that finally go

on the robot so that’s the process

that’s underlying all of these things

and let me just kind of show you an

example of this theorem in action

so this theorem is running on this robot

via algorithms that were developed by my

students and myself

at our research lab and and so what’s

happening here is this robot

is walking dynamically with everything

on board

in a natural human-like way now the key

point here is no human data went into

generating this walking in fact this

walking is just purely a function of the

dynamics that are inherent to the system

itself

in fact the walking comes from making

the robot walk in the way that we walk

that is having heel strike toe strike

and a toe lift in its feet

and then it also comes from the fact

that there’s springs in the ankles that

we store energy

and release and the result of the

physics interfacing with the mathematics

is this natural human-like locomotion so

what else do theorems give us what else

does mathematics give us

gives us generality so once we

understand how to do this on one robot

we don’t have to repeat the process all

over again

rather we can take a totally different

robot in this case cassie which i

mentioned

earlier and we can take and apply the

same procedure you don’t even have to

look at all the stuff in this because

i’ve explained it all to you already and

we can get walking on flat ground in the

lab

we can get walking even outside now in

this case on some flat ground

outside and then finally we can even get

walking on some rough terrain

meaning that this math and these

theorems are robust enough that they let

us do this

and in environments that we didn’t

actually plan for

in fact we can take really aggressive

terrain to a certain degree

so this is a root system at cal tech

right outside of our building

and you see that the robot’s kind of

dancing a little bit here it’s having

it’s giving it a go trying to walk

through this very tough terrain

until it falls it did pretty well though

right it almost made it

we’ll watch it one more time because

it’s actually really amazing and

remember all of this is the mathematics

in action we’re not planning here

this is just using the dynamics of the

system to try to walk

almost all the way so the other thing

about theorems that’s really nice is

it’s not restricted to only bipeds

in fact we can apply the same general

mathematics to quadrupeds

quadrupeds are basically just two bipeds

that are kind of working together to

carry this thing in the middle right

and so this is the same exact root

system that cassie walked on but now

turns out the quadruped can actually

handle it you’ll see it actually gets a

little bit of air time there in the

process

and then ends up finishing the finishing

and not falling in this case which is

very nice

so we can apply this to different

platforms which is really exciting

finally we can do different behaviors

this is jumping cassie again

in this case cassie jumps about seven

inches in the air meaning his feet are

seven inches off the ground

i think this is probably almost better

than i could do and again the point is

once we understand that this physics of

movement this this mathematical

understanding of movement

we can make robots and different types

of robots do amazing things

so the question now becomes why do we

care

this is really cool and these are fun

and the videos are great and it’s great

seeing robots do amazing things

but why do we care and i think the point

here is that with this

understanding with understanding comes

responsibility

and taking this to a a domain where we

can actually

help people live better lives and let’s

be real however cool robots jumping is

that’s not going to make your life

better right

well maybe for a second when you watch

the video but beyond that it won’t it

won’t help you all too much

but imagine if we can take and translate

this understanding

to making people walk better

and this is the this is the merit in

studying bipedalism

because now that we understand how to

get human-like walking on bipedal robots

at a fundamental and mathematical level

we could translate it to things like

prosthetics and exoskeletons

right because this is all math it’s all

general we can view the human in a

general way and have them interact with

the device

in particular we can actually do this

very concretely and very scientifically

we can start with let’s say a walking

robot and we can take this theorem and

translate it to the device as if it was

a prosthetic

and that lets us equally take the same

ideas

and put it on prosthetic devices so this

is an actual amputee

walking with our first generation

prosthetic that was custom built by my

left

we’ve since made these prosthetics even

better this is our one of our latest

generation prosthetic devices again it’s

kind of amazing that

my students have built this by hand they

machine this they put it all together

all the electronics all the algorithms

all through their hard work and then we

take the math the theorem and put it on

here

and again just like we could take robots

outside we could take these prosthetic

devices outside

so in this case two of my students are

walking with the prosthetic around

caltech

they can handle terrains they can handle

some different environments

so this is this is what we want to do is

translate these technologies

but we can take these ideas even a step

further and this is this is more

challenging

more fun so a few years back we started

working with this

startup company in france of of all

places

and they had this idea they bravely had

this idea that they wanted to take the

math that we developed for walking

robots

and put it on exoskeletons for

paraplegics

so they designed and built this this

hardware but we

took the math that we have for walking

and put it on the device itself so my

grad student is in this in the video

you’re about to see here

helping them test out some of these

algorithms now the important thing is if

we can make this walk dynamically on its

own

what can we do we can put people into it

and they can walk dynamically even if

they can’t walk themselves

so what you’ll see here is first the

demonstration that the exoskeleton can

walk on its own

with nobody in it so we have a dummy in

it and it’s walking dynamically

again through the same map but now we

put a paraplegic in it

so this user is a complete paraplegic

meaning he has absolutely no function of

his legs and has not for 10

years and this is the first example of

dynamic walking

crutch-free walking with a paraplegic

that’s ever been demonstrated

it’s a powerful moment when you can

realize that this this passion of yours

this mathematical understanding that you

obsess over all the time can actually go

out and help people you know i heard

stories of this clinical testing the

loved ones around them

really connected with seeing them for

the first time upright

walking in a natural and dynamic way so

this is where we want to take these

ideas

and in this context at caltech we’re

fortunate enough through this

collaboration that we have one of these

devices

at caltech now and so what we’re able to

do is test it

in action test new ideas in the process

and try to bring them to

a case where we can actually have robots

and people work together

so that’s the vision underlying all this

as we want an environment where robots

and people

can interact in positive and beneficial

ways

so it’s not really fair you got to see a

bunch of videos of robots walking and

don’t get to see one yourself

so i’d like to welcome cassie to the

stage

so this is this robot was built by

agility robotics but is running all of

the math that i showed you today

meaning the mathematics under the hood

is what was developed by my students and

myself and collaborators in our lab

and you see that it has a very dynamic

feel to its walking

that’s because again we’re leveraging

the dynamics of locomotion

so in this case you’ll notice that

cassie has very small feet

that’s why it has to keep moving it also

has springs so it has these compliance

that has to go through

to help balance the system so we can

even do things

so so we’re going to try first here and

head up on the

let’s go good job cassie so cassie got

under the

the tad dot this might be one of the

first robots that’s been walking on the

ted dot dynamically

and so it’s able to handle all of these

terrains again

exactly because of what i talked about

earlier taking these

concepts and generalizing them

mathematically so that we can

characterize locomotion and these are

the same algorithms we ultimately put on

exoskeletons

to help people walk better and you can

imagine

somebody who can’t walk now walking with

these algorithms and able to even handle

a little bit of disturbances

get pushed on a little bit so we can

start to get close to robots

again years ago i wouldn’t have imagined

being able to stand next to a dynamic

walking robot and actually put my hand

on it

and interact with it and that’s where

we’re at today and

that’s where we want to head tomorrow is

more and more of this

human and robots working together in a

positive way

to affect change so with that thank you

very much

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you