My seven species of robot Dennis Hong
so the first robots talk about is called
Strider it stands for a self-excited try
Peter dynamic experimental robot it’s a
robot that has three legs which is
inspired by nature but have you seen
anything in nature and an animal that
has three legs
probably not so why I do I call this a
biologically inspired robot how would it
work but before that let’s look at pop
culture so you know HG Wells world the
world’s novel a movie and what you see
over here is a very popular video game
and and these are fiction they describe
these alien creatures and robots that
have three legs that terrorize earth but
my robot Strider does not move like this
so this is an actual dynamic simulation
animation it’s going to show you how the
robot works it flips this body 180
degrees its swings its legs between the
two legs and catches the fall so that’s
how it walks but when you look at us
human being bipedal walking what you’re
doing is you’re not really using a
muscle to lift your leg and do like and
walk like a robot right what you’re
doing is you really swing your leg and
catch the ball stand up again swing your
leg and cast a fall you’re using your
built-in dynamics the physics of your
body just like a pendulum we call that
the concept of passive dynamic
locomotion what you’re doing is when you
stand up potential energy to kinetic
energy potential energy killing energy
and it’s a constantly falling process so
even though there’s nothing in nature
that looks like this really we’re
inspired by biology and applying the
principles of walking to this robot thus
is a biologically inspired robot what
you see over here this is what we want
to do next we want to fold up the legs
and shoot it up for long-range motion
and it deploys legs it looks almost like
Star Wars when it lands it absorbs the
shock and starts walking what you see
over here this yellow thing this is not
a death ray this is a just to show you
that if you have cameras of different
type of sensors because it is tall it’s
1.8 meters tall you can see over
obstacles and bushes and those kind of
things so we have two prototypes the
first version in the back that’s Strider
one the one in the front the smaller
Strider - the problem that we had with
Strider one is was just too heavy in the
body we had sown
mortars you know aligning the joints and
those kind of things so we decided to
synthesize a mechanical mechanism so I
can get rid of all the motors and with a
single motor we can coordinate all the
motions this be kind of a solution to a
problem instead of using mechatronics so
with this now the top part is are light
enough so it’s walked in our lab this is
our very first successful step it’s
still not perfected it Coffee falls down
so we still have a lot of work to do the
second robot I want to talk about is
called impasse it stands for intelligent
mobility platform with actuated spoke
system so it’s a wheel leg hybrid robot
so think of a rimless wheel or a spoke
wheel but the spokes individually move
in and out of the hub so it’s a wheel
leg hybrid we’re literally reinventing
the wheel here let me show how it
demonstrate how it works so in this
video we’re using an approach called a
reactive approach just simply using the
tactile sensors on the feet it’s trying
to walk over a changing terrain a soft
terrain where it then pushes down a
changes and just by the tactile
information it successfully crosses over
these type of train but when it
encounters a very extreme terrain in
this case this obstacle is more than
three times at the height of the robot
then it switches to a deliberate mode
where it uses a laser rangefinder and
camera systems to identify the obstacle
on the sides and it plans carefully
plans the motion of the spokes and
coordinates it so that it can show this
kind of very very impressive mobility
you probably haven’t seen anything like
this out there this is a very high
mobility robot that we developed called
impasse ah is that cool ah when you
drive your car when you steer your car
you use a method called akmed steering
yuuna for the front wheels rotate like
this for both of the small you know
wheeled robot they use a method called
differential stirring where the left and
right wheels turn the opposite direction
for impasse because of many many
different types of motion for example in
this case even the left and right wheel
is connected with a single axle rotating
same angular velocity we just simply
change the length of the scope affected
diameter and then you get turned to left
but to right so these are just some
examples of the neat things that we can
do with impasse this robot is called
climber cable suspended limp intelligent
matching behavior robot so I’ve been
talking to a lot of NASA JPL scientists
at JPL they’re famous for the Mars
rovers and decide this geologists always
tells me that the real interesting
science the science recites are always
at the cliffs but the recurrent Rovers
cannot get there so inspired by that we
want to build a robot that can climb
instructor cliff environment so this is
climber so what it does it has three
legs it probably can’t it’s difficult to
see but has a winch and a cable on the
top I try to figure out the best place
to put its foot and then once it figures
that out in real time it calculates the
force distribution how much force it
needs to exert to the surface so it
doesn’t tip and doesn’t slip once it
stabilizes that lifts a foot and then
with the winch we can climb up these
kind of fun also for search on rescue
applications as well five years ago
actually worked at NASA JPL during the
summer as a faculty fellow and they
already had a tour of a six-legged robot
car a lemur so this is actually based on
that this robot is called Mars multi
appendage robotic system so it’s a
hexapod robot we developed our adaptive
gait planner we actually have a very
interesting payload on there the
students like to have fun and here you
can see that it’s walking over
unstructured rain it’s trying to walk on
the coastal plain match area but
depending on the moisture content
for the size of the grain size of the
sand the foots soil sink each model
changes so it tries to adapt its gait to
successfully cross over these kind of
things it also does some fun stuff as
can imagine we get so many visitors
visiting our labs so when the visitors
come Mars walks up to the computer
starts typing hello my name is Mars
welcome to Ramallah the ROI some
mechanisms lavatory at Virginia Tech
this robot is a ameba robot now we don’t
have enough time to go into technical
details I’ll just show you some of the
experiments so this is all over the
early feasibility experience we store
potential energy to the elastic skin to
make it move or use active tension
course when they can move forward and
backward
it’s called chimera we also have been
working with some scientists and
engineers from UPenn to come up with a
chemically actuated version of this vive
robot we do something to something and
just like magic it moves the ball this
robot is a very recent projects called
Raphael robotic air powered hand with
elastic ligaments there are a lot of
really neat very good robotic hands out
there in the market the problem is
they’re just too expensive tens of
thousands of dollars so for prosthesis
application is probably not too
practical because it’s not affordable we
want to go a tackle this problem in a
very different direction instead of
using electrical motors
electromechanical actuators we’re using
compressed air we developed these novel
actuators for the joints so it’s
compliant you can actually change the
force simply just changing the air
pressure and it can actually crush an
empty soda can it can pick up very
delicate objects like a raw egg or in
this case a light bulb the best part it
took only $200 to make the first
prototype this robot is actually a
family of snake robots that we called
hydras hyper degrees-of-freedom robotic
articulated server time this is a robot
that can climb structures this is a
hydras arm it’s a total degrees of
freedom robotic arm but the cool part is
the user interface the cable over there
that’s the optical fiber and this
student probably the first time using it
but you can articulate it in many
different ways so for example in the
Iraq
you know the war zone there’s roadside
bombs currently send this autonomous
remotely controlled
with our arm it takes really a lot of
time and expensive to train the operator
to operate this complex arm in this case
it’s very intuitive this student
probably first I’m using it very complex
manipulation task picking up objects and
doing manipulation just like that very
intuitive now this robot is currently
our star robot we actually have a fan
club for the robot Darwin dynamic and
performing robot with intelligence as
you know we’re very interested in
humanoid robot human walking so we
decided to build a small human robot
this is at 2 in 2004 at that time this
is something really really revolutionary
this was more of a feasibility study
what kind of motors should use is it
even possible what kind of control
should he do so this does not have any
sensors so it’s an open-loop control and
for those who probably know if you don’t
have any sensors and there’s any
disturbances you know what happens so
based on that success in the following
year we did the proper mechanical design
starting from kinematics and thus Darwin
1 was born in 2005 it stands up it walks
very impressive however still as you can
see it has a cord umbilical cord so
you’re still using external power source
and our external computation so in 2006
now it’s really time to have fun
let’s give it intelligence we give all
the computing power needs 1.5 g yards
pin 2mm chip too far our cameras the
rate gyros accelerometers force torque
sensor on the foot beef in polymer
batteries and now Darwin to is
completely autonomous it is not remote
controlled there’s no feathers
it looks around searches for the ball
looks around searches for the ball and
it tries to play a game of soccer
autonomously artificial intelligence
let’s see how it does this was our very
first trial and so there is actually a
competition called Robo Club I don’t
know how many of you heard about a
Robocop it’s in a international
autonomous robot soccer competition and
the goal of Robocop the officer goal is
by the year 2050 we want to have
full-sized autonomous humanoid robots
play soccer against the
human ruled Cup champions and win it’s a
true offshore goal it’s a very ambitious
goal but we truly believe that we can do
it so this is a last year in China we
were the very first team in the United
States that qualified in the humilate
RoboCup competition this is this year
and this was in Austria you guys see the
action of three against three completely
autonomous Hey yes the robots back and
they play a team play amongst themselves
it’s very impressive really a research
event package in a more exciting in a
competition event what you see over here
this is the beautiful Louis Vuitton Cup
trophy so this for the best humanoid and
you’ll like to bring this for the very
first time to the United States next
year so wish us luck
thank you Darwin also has a lot of other
talents last year it actually conducted
the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra for the
the holiday concert this is the next
generation robot Darwin for much smarter
faster stronger and it’s trying to show
off its ability my macho I’m strong
alright I can also do some Jackie Chan
motion you know martial art movements it
walks away so this is darling for you
again you’ll be able to see in the lobby
we truly believe this is going to be the
very first running human robot in the
United States so it’s stay tuned alright
so I showed you some of our exciting
robotics work so what what’s the secret
of our success where we come up with
these ideas how do we develop these kind
of ideas we have a fully autonomous
vehicle that can drive in the urban
environment we won half a million
dollars in dart bourbon challenge we
also have the rules very first vehicle
that can be driven by the blind called
the blind driver challenge very exciting
and many many other robots project I
want to talk about these are just awards
that won in 2007 fall from robots
competition as those kind of things so
really have five secrets first is where
do we get inspiration where to get this
a spark of imagination this is true
story my personal story at night when I
go to bed three four a.m. in the morning
I lie down close my eyes and I see these
lines and circles and different shapes
floating around and they
assemblé and they form different
mechanisms anyway oh this is cool so
right next to my bed I keep a notebook a
journal with a special pen that has a
light on it LED light because I don’t
want to turn on the light and wake up my
wife
so why I say this i scribble everything
down draw things and I go to bed every
day in the morning the first thing I do
before my first cup of coffee before my
brush my teeth I open my notebook many
times it’s empty sometimes I have
something there if something that
sometimes is junk but most of the time I
can’t even read my handwriting it’s a 4
a.m. in the morning what do you expect
right so I need to decipher what I wrote
but sometimes I see this ingenious idea
in there and I have this irika moment I
directly run to my home office sit in my
computer I type into ideas and sketch
things out and I keep a database of
ideas so when we have this call for
proposals I try to find a match between
my potential ideas and the problem if
there’s a match we write a research
proposal get the research funding in and
that’s how we start our research
programs but just as far imagination is
not good enough how do we develop these
kind of ideas at our lab Romola the
robots of mechanisms laboratory we have
this fantastic brainstorming session so
we gather around we discuss about
problems and social problems and talk
about it but we before we start we set
this Golden Rule the rule is nobody
criticizes anybody’s ideas nobody
criticizes any opinion this is important
because many times students they fear
they feel uncomfortable how other might
think about their opinions and thoughts
so once you do this it is amazing how
the students open up they have this
wacky cool crazy brilliant ideas and the
whole room is just electrified with
creative energy and this is how we
develop our ideas well we’re running out
of time one more thing I want to talk
about is you know just a spark of idea
and developments not good enough there
was a great TED moment I think was Sir
Ken Robinson was it he gave a talk about
how education and school kills
creativity well actually there’s two
sides to the story so there’s only so
much one can do with just ingenious
ideas and creativity and good
engineering intuition if you want to go
beyond the tinkering if you want to go
beyond the hobbyist
products and really tackle the the grand
challenges of Robotics through rigorous
research we need more than that this is
where school comes in Batman fight
against bad guys he has this utility
belt he has this grappling hook has all
difficult of gadgets for us Rhodes’s
engineers on scientists these tools
these are the courses and classes you
take in class math differential
equations I have linear algebra science
physics even nowadays chemistry and
biology as you’ve seen these are all the
tools that we need so the more tools you
have for Batman more effective in
fighting the bad guys for us more tools
to attack these kind of big problems so
education very important also it’s not
about that only about that you also have
to work really really hard so I always
tell my students work smart then work
hard this picture in the back this is a
3 a.m. in the morning I guarantee if you
come to our lab 3 4 a.m. they we have
students working there not because I
tell them to because we’re having too
much fun which leads to the last topic
do not forget to have fun that’s really
a secret of our success we’re having too
much fun I truly believe that highest
product it comes in when you’re having
fun and that’s what we’re doing and
there you go thank you so much
you