Thursday, July 12, 2007

Robot unravels mystery of walking


Runbot is a self-learning, dynamic robot, which has been built around the theories of Nikolai Bernstein
"Gettin
g a robot to walk like a human requires a dynamic machine," said Professor Florentin Woergoetter
Runbot is a small, bip
ed robot which can move at speeds
of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the
fastest walking human.


Dynamic process


He said human walking was a dynamic process.


"About half of the time during a gait cycle we are not
doing anything, just falling forward. We are propelling ourselves over
and over again - like releasing a spring.


"In a robot, the difficulty lies in releasing the
spring-like movement at the right moment in time - calculated in
milliseconds - and to get the dampening right so that the robot does
not fall forward and crash.


"These parameters are very difficult to handle," he said


Runbot

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