Big Dog – Hound of Hades

March 21, 2008 · 7 comments

in WTF?

Hello there loyal werty.net readers. (3-4 of you?)

Have you seen this f’n thing yet? Big Dog:

It is more or less a completely amazing robot that looks like some sort of animal. Here is what they say at Boston Dynamics:

The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth
BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog’s legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.

BigDog has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.

In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.

BigDog is being developed by Boston Dynamics with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

The things that blow my mind are when the guy plays a little chin music on Big Dog, and Ol BD takes it better than Mc Mahon.

I just re watched the video and big dog knows how to jump… it is right near the end… it is really Impressive and scary as shit.

What are your thoughts on technology like this? When he is skidding on the ice I am half hoping he goes down and half hoping he stays up. He really works my emotions. I kind of want to see this thing destroyed, but I kind of want to see how far they take this technology.

I would not mind if this lil slut gets a few makeovers and accessories:

Seriously though… the way this stuff is going it looks like terminator or transformers is right around the corner… luckily big dog runs on gasoline which is in limited supply.

Hopefully they will make one of these that runs on Ethanol so it eats all of our fucking corn.

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

1 your_store 03.21.08 at 8:27 am

Yeah, BigDog is scary and awe-inspiring at the same time. Too bad he’s going to have a rocket launcher strapped to his ass soon.

Have you seen the new Elmo?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dVUPTTkIBVI

My bet is on Elmo becoming self-aware first.

2 Werty 03.21.08 at 10:01 am

Jesus Christ, that thing is scary. My only goal now is to get ripped so I can destroy the shit out of these robots if I ever see them in person.

In less than 5 years there better be a man VS machine style battle bot show where people try and create human mangling bots. Like American Gladiators meets Battle Bots meets WWF, meets Running man.

3 your_store 03.21.08 at 1:33 pm

Ever play Smash TV?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smash_TV

4 Jeffc 03.25.08 at 9:46 pm

I wanted it to turn around and kick that guys ass when he tried to knock it over….Some basic voice AI would make that thing awesome…

5 your_store 03.27.08 at 9:10 am

haha.. Big Dog Beta.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJZVZFRFJc

6 Ash 04.04.08 at 6:46 am

3-4 of us? I thought I was the only one… 😉

7 obliterator 01.01.09 at 11:50 pm

We’re doomed. Skynet is fucking taken over.

Leave a Comment

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Previous post:

Next post: