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BigDog

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"Big Dog" redirects here. For the Guillemots song, see Red (Guillemots album).
A pair of BigDog robots

BigDog is a dynamically stable quadruped robot created in 2005 by Boston Dynamics with Foster-Miller, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Harvard University Concord Field Station.[1]

History

BigDog is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the hopes that it will be able to serve as a robotic pack mule to accompany soldiers in terrain too rough for conventional vehicles. Instead of wheels or treads, BigDog uses four legs for movement, allowing it to move across surfaces that would defeat wheels. The legs contain a variety of sensors, including joint position and ground contact. BigDog also features a laser gyroscope and a stereo vision system.

BigDog is 3 feet (0.91 m) long, stands 2.5 feet (0.76 m) tall, and weighs 240 pounds (110 kg), about the size of a small mule.[1] It is capable of traversing difficult terrain at 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h), carry 340 pounds (150 kg) and climb a 35 degree incline.[1] Locomotion is controlled by an onboard computer that receives input from the robot's various sensors. Navigation and balance are also managed by the control system.

BigDog was featured in an episode of Web Junk 20, as well as articles in New Scientist, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and The Wall Street Journal.

On March 18, 2008, Boston Dynamics released video footage of a new generation of BigDog. The footage shows BigDog's ability to walk on icy terrain and recover its balance when kicked from the side.[2]

Hardware

Big Dog is powered by a two-stroke, one-cylinder, 15-HP go-kart engine running at 9000 RPM. The engine drives a hydraulic pump, which in turn drives the hydraulic leg actuators. Each leg has four actuators (two for the hip joint, and one each for the knee and ankle joints), for a total of 16. Each actuator unit consists of a hydraulic cylinder, servovalve, position sensor, and force sensor.

Onboard computing power is modest: a ruggedized PC/104 board stack with a Pentium 4 class computer running QNX.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Boston Dynamics". Retrieved 2009-06-22.
  2. ^ Video of BigDog in action from Boston Dynamics
  3. ^ "BigDog Overview" (PDF). Boston Dynamics. November 22, 2008.
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