Wheels and tracks are easiest to get a robot going, but those mobility solutions have their limitations, and to mention, does not satisfy our sci-fi fantasy. If we expect robots to traverse across a variety of terrains like humans do, then bipedal is the way to go. There’s no doubt about it. Armed with this notion, Agility Robots, a spin-off of Oregon State University, has devoted its time to perfecting a robot that walks on two and from the looks of it, the roboticists over at Agility Robotics may have pulled it off rather perfectly. The robot in question is called Cassie, a bipedal robot revealed back in February when it demonstrated its eerily human-like walking ability.
While Cassie is capable of human-like mobility, it is definitely not the be all and end all thing; there are much to be done, but imagine this: the robot was designed from the ground up and when the demo video was handed, little Cassie was only three months old. In the demo, Cassie has proven itself on dirt, on grass and even balancing on a wobbly dock surrounded by any robot’s greatest threat: water. However, the only thing that water threatens Cassie is not short circuiting it, but because it does not know how to swim. Apparently, it is kind of water-resistant and therefore, Cassie is totally capable of making haste with whatever it has to do even when it is raining.
Speaking of which, one must be wondering what Cassie can do. Well, with its human-like mobility, Cassie is poised for a future of search-and-rescue, disaster relief, and also devilry package right up your front door. So, as you can imagine, the scenes in I, Robot where robots were seen delivery packages are not too farfetched at all. Anywho, we shan’t bore you with the details, but if you are down for a good read on what makes Cassie ticks, you can read more HERE. In the mean time, you can be enthralled by this torso-less robotic creature doing its things in the video after the post.
Images: Agility Robotics.
Animated GIF: IEEE Spectrum.
via Sailesh Prasad.
Additional information: IEEE Spectrum.
