For those who don't understand the U.S. military funding process: This is being shelved because there isn't money to continue work, not because of a fundamental problem with the technology. [1] It's more of a "We'd LOVE to give you this cool thing... Too bad we don't have any money to work on it. Oh well!"
[1] The article mentions that they built a quieter version of the robot that carried less. More interesting were problems about how to maintain the things (from training mechanics to supplying replacement parts) and how to integrate them into current training. (How/when to use? Advantages? Disadvantages?)
BigDog's power pack was originally a constant speed gasoline engine driving a hydraulic pump and an electrical generator. That's the noisy engine in the earlier videos. The LS3 was supposed to have a new, quieter power pack developed with a small variable-speed Diesel engine. That was subcontracted out by Boston Dynamics. This is as good as it ever got: [1] It still sounds like a dirt bike.
The hydraulic system used is very controllable but not particularly efficient. There's no energy recovery and no springyness; it's brute-force hydraulics. That was reasonable for an experimental machine, but not acceptable in the production product. Atlas, the BD humanoid, has the same problem. It's too similar to BigDog, and weighs about 330 pounds. Schaft, Google's other humanoid robotics company, uses water-cooled electric motors, like Tesla. You can enormously overload electric motors for a few seconds without hurting them, and if you have cooling and temperature monitoring, that works fine. This is probably the way forward for anything smaller than a pony.
These are the "Big Dog" mules being built by Boston Dynamics, who was recently acquired by Google.
Google has been against militarizing the robots since acquisition, so they're no doubt happy to have this contract dropped.
To be clear, this doesn't mean the project is shelved, it means the contract with the Marine Corps is shelved. Google will be able to focus more directly on civilian uses for the mules from here on out.
Well this technology certainly has far more uses than the military, specifically search and rescue. Send these puppies in to hard hit areas, isolated spots, and the like, with supplies and such. The military will get their robots so we have to accept that but we can use all that research into making them do useful and humanitarian missions. No one will care if that rescue robot is noisy.
Why are they against militarizing robots? It pays the bills. They could start with consumers or business but it's harder to build a market. This makes it harder to fund further development.
Once the technology is developed by anyone for non-military use, transitioning to the military is easy. There's not some magic that prevents consumer developed technology from reaching the battlefield.
There are these things called "mules." They're quiet, can carry about 200lbs., and can refuel themselves as they go by eating grass and drinking water...
The logistics of keeping them fed and watered, having trained handlers, and treating them for injuries are nontrivial. And they're prone to unhelpful reactions in a firefight. There are good reasons they've largely been displaced by motor vehicles. Combining the go-anywhere ability of legged propulsion with the advantages of motor transport seems like a good enough idea to merit study.
Yeah, but they get all nervous around gunfire and explosions. They don't handle helicopters and the airdrop well either. Packing several dozen of them to fit into a C130 for the 12 hour overseas trip is also a bit difficult.
Can anyone in robotics weigh in on whether new approaches like pneubotics / otherlab [0, 1] make Boston Dynamics' super heavy/noisy/expensive robots irrelevant or not? That's what Saul Griffith has been saying at least [2], I'd like to hear an impartial take on it
Boston Dynamics' primary innovation is in the software/control design. The reason their robots are noisy is because they really haven't innovated a whole lot in the basic actuator design. That's not to say their mechanical design was easy, not by a long shot. It's super impressive stuff!
Any new inventions that would make their mechanical design steer away from loud hydraulics would no doubt be amazing. However, without Boston dynamics' delightfully ground-breaking controls software design, it'll be dead in the water!
In my opinion, I don't think inflatable robots are very practical.(except for niche applications)
One of the most important things in robotics is reliability, the more work your robot does before breaking down or needing maintenance the more money it makes you. In industrial robot arms the gold standard for this is a Mean Time Between Failures of more than 100,000 hours. That's more than 10 years of continuous operation!
I am skeptical that inflatable robots will be able to last this long. The fabric/elastomer combo is certainly not going to last through 10 years of continuous operation. Sure this part may be cheap, but you still need expensive valving and pneumatics to control said robot. Not to mention that maintenance costs money too. The payback period for robots is also shortening,
The other problem that pneumatic robots suffer from is that air is compressible. This means that moving it around to drive pneumatics is gonna be inefficient and that pneumatic structures aren't that rigid. Higher rigidity means higher resonant frequency which means your robot can operate faster without wobbling around. The inefficiency might be compensated for because the robot is so light, but I have yet to see any hard numbers on this.
This lack of rigidity is touted as a feature by the people who make inflatable robots. Because they are so light and aren't rigid they aren't going to hurt people if they fuck up. There are other ways to solve this problem that are currently used in the robotics industry. One of them is to put a spring on every link in the robot, which is what the Baxter robot does. Another is to make the robot as light as possible and limit speed which is what one of Kuka's human safe robots does[0]. Better control also fixes this problem, if you don't hit the human then you don't have any problem.
But there might be niche applications. Maybe they will find use in the medical field where having anything rigid touch a human is unacceptable or where you need a weird shape to grab a human on a bed. Entertainment might be another, a while back a japanese company made giant inflatable robots for parades.
why do they need this. What are they carrying? Are marines supposed to go without resupplies for weeks/months where they would need an additional robot mule to carry everything?
Combat loads have been increasing for decades as we load our troops with new tech and body armor. A US Army report indicates an average of 87-127 lbs (40-58 kg) carry load [0]. Another here [1] indicates 90-110 lbs. US Army doctrine prescribes a max load of 60lb, but troops regularly are exceeding the guidance due to operational necessity. It's incredibly stressful on the body and is a major indicator in early joint and soft tissue degeneration in our soldiers and Marines.
The branches are all looking at ways to reduce the load. Pack "animals" are an excellent option to offload heavy equipment and improve the health and long-term mobility of our combat forces.
Yes, actually this was a frequent occurrence in Afghanistan. Soldiers or Marines would be posted in small numbers in a remote COP in the mountains. Resupplying these troops would require more soldiers then were actually in the COP, and the resupply missions were often more dangerous than the mission of the COP itself (because it is easier to ambush a convoy of trucks than attacked an outpost).
"“What we’ve seen is that when Marines come ashore, they’re carrying 130 pounds of food, water, batteries, ammo, you name it, on their backs because fundamentally, they don’t trust sea-based logistics to keep them supplied,”
Telling your robot to carry this shit over there is great way to resupply. Compared to having soldiers (or contractors) get blown up driving trucks around.
I wonder at what price point the civilian market could support these? There must be a fair number of applications for resupply where humans (sherpas), actual animal mules or helicopters are required, ie, forestry, National Park rangers, science, recreation, etc.
In most areas where these guys operate, actual mules are probably cheaper, and can be refueled with locally available forage. Not to mention they're more suitable for that kind of environment.
Perhaps more 'extreme' environments where that forage is not available would be more suitable?
Government probably gets better bang for its buck by mounting a pistol onto each of 1,000 flying drones that only cost $300 per unit. That's an army I'd be unenthused about facing.
I'm having a hard time seeing why you couldn't take something like a fat bike, and put an electrical assist motor on it, and have troops use that, mostly by pushing it. If you run out of battery, it still works 100% except now you have to push all the weight (or pedal, which could also be used to charge the battery). Gotta leave in a hurry? Use the bike, or just throw it away. Slash the tires and it's pretty much useless for the enemy.
Probably < $1,000 wholesale in off the shelf parts. Def. less than $40mm. Easily carry 100lbs of gear.
Even a bike like that works only on a limited amount of terrain. Add the 100 ish pounds of weight they need to be able to carry in addition to a person and they get bogged down even worse. The ways you can pack them is also really limited because soldiers would need to be able to take everything off and carry it still in the even that it does get bogged down.
If it is like the original big dog then it doesn't use electric motors/actuators it uses hydraulics that are driven by the gas engine.[0] Supposedly it gets ~0.5 miles per gallon.
These will be turned into mounted auto targeting gun platforms if they haven't been already. This is the 2nd time reading about this topic so the DOD PR team is in full spin. This might be a intelligence counter-measure to show the world 'see we dont want to use this tech!' when in reality it has been taken over into black ops world.
"MMRTG contains a total of 10.6 pounds (4.8 kilograms) of plutonium dioxide (including Pu-238) that initially provides approximately 2,000 watts of thermal power and 110 watts of electrical power when exposed to deep
space environments."[1]
Even if ~110 watts per ~4.8 kilograms is good for legs in agile situations, as opposed to wheels in a slow-and-steady rover, losing one in combat means you've just given the enemy a few kilos of radioactive material.
jt2190|10 years ago
[1] The article mentions that they built a quieter version of the robot that carried less. More interesting were problems about how to maintain the things (from training mechanics to supplying replacement parts) and how to integrate them into current training. (How/when to use? Advantages? Disadvantages?)
[2] For those of you interested in the U.S. Military's use of Mules in more recent times: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/15/riding-high
Animats|10 years ago
The hydraulic system used is very controllable but not particularly efficient. There's no energy recovery and no springyness; it's brute-force hydraulics. That was reasonable for an experimental machine, but not acceptable in the production product. Atlas, the BD humanoid, has the same problem. It's too similar to BigDog, and weighs about 330 pounds. Schaft, Google's other humanoid robotics company, uses water-cooled electric motors, like Tesla. You can enormously overload electric motors for a few seconds without hurting them, and if you have cooling and temperature monitoring, that works fine. This is probably the way forward for anything smaller than a pony.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arIJm2lAfR8
JabavuAdams|10 years ago
The technology is amazing and will no doubt find use elsewhere.
Lambdanaut|10 years ago
Google has been against militarizing the robots since acquisition, so they're no doubt happy to have this contract dropped.
To be clear, this doesn't mean the project is shelved, it means the contract with the Marine Corps is shelved. Google will be able to focus more directly on civilian uses for the mules from here on out.
Shivetya|10 years ago
melling|10 years ago
Once the technology is developed by anyone for non-military use, transitioning to the military is easy. There's not some magic that prevents consumer developed technology from reaching the battlefield.
homerowilson|10 years ago
lmm|10 years ago
melling|10 years ago
dingaling|10 years ago
Try finding 30 litres of water and 8 kg of grass ( plus a portion of salt ) per mule per day, minimum, in the mountains of Afghanistan.
To move 90 kg of payload? There are many more efficient methods.
1024core|10 years ago
lazypenguin|10 years ago
eliteraspberrie|10 years ago
jarmitage|10 years ago
[0] http://www.pneubotics.com/
[1] https://otherlab.com/projects
[2] "[...] we're the only game in town." 21:00 onwards https://youtu.be/gyMowPAJwqo?t=1263
pj_mukh|10 years ago
Any new inventions that would make their mechanical design steer away from loud hydraulics would no doubt be amazing. However, without Boston dynamics' delightfully ground-breaking controls software design, it'll be dead in the water!
For a little bit of proof, see who they are hiring! http://www.bostondynamics.com/bd_jobs.html
gene-h|10 years ago
One of the most important things in robotics is reliability, the more work your robot does before breaking down or needing maintenance the more money it makes you. In industrial robot arms the gold standard for this is a Mean Time Between Failures of more than 100,000 hours. That's more than 10 years of continuous operation!
I am skeptical that inflatable robots will be able to last this long. The fabric/elastomer combo is certainly not going to last through 10 years of continuous operation. Sure this part may be cheap, but you still need expensive valving and pneumatics to control said robot. Not to mention that maintenance costs money too. The payback period for robots is also shortening,
The other problem that pneumatic robots suffer from is that air is compressible. This means that moving it around to drive pneumatics is gonna be inefficient and that pneumatic structures aren't that rigid. Higher rigidity means higher resonant frequency which means your robot can operate faster without wobbling around. The inefficiency might be compensated for because the robot is so light, but I have yet to see any hard numbers on this.
This lack of rigidity is touted as a feature by the people who make inflatable robots. Because they are so light and aren't rigid they aren't going to hurt people if they fuck up. There are other ways to solve this problem that are currently used in the robotics industry. One of them is to put a spring on every link in the robot, which is what the Baxter robot does. Another is to make the robot as light as possible and limit speed which is what one of Kuka's human safe robots does[0]. Better control also fixes this problem, if you don't hit the human then you don't have any problem.
But there might be niche applications. Maybe they will find use in the medical field where having anything rigid touch a human is unacceptable or where you need a weird shape to grab a human on a bed. Entertainment might be another, a while back a japanese company made giant inflatable robots for parades.
[0] http://www.phriends.eu/URAI_08.pdf
wehadfun|10 years ago
mattlutze|10 years ago
The branches are all looking at ways to reduce the load. Pack "animals" are an excellent option to offload heavy equipment and improve the health and long-term mobility of our combat forces.
0: http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20110214/NEWS/102140308... 1: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/c...
mason240|10 years ago
arethuza|10 years ago
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2013/march/pa...
Which includes this quote:
"“What we’ve seen is that when Marines come ashore, they’re carrying 130 pounds of food, water, batteries, ammo, you name it, on their backs because fundamentally, they don’t trust sea-based logistics to keep them supplied,”
njharman|10 years ago
Telling your robot to carry this shit over there is great way to resupply. Compared to having soldiers (or contractors) get blown up driving trucks around.
thinkcontext|10 years ago
davidw|10 years ago
In most areas where these guys operate, actual mules are probably cheaper, and can be refueled with locally available forage. Not to mention they're more suitable for that kind of environment.
Perhaps more 'extreme' environments where that forage is not available would be more suitable?
njharman|10 years ago
hoodoof|10 years ago
melted|10 years ago
justinator|10 years ago
Probably < $1,000 wholesale in off the shelf parts. Def. less than $40mm. Easily carry 100lbs of gear.
rtkwe|10 years ago
sitkack|10 years ago
analog31|10 years ago
unknown|10 years ago
[deleted]
ck2|10 years ago
gene-h|10 years ago
[0] http://www.bostondynamics.com/img/BigDog_Overview.pdf
kpauburn|10 years ago
deathhand|10 years ago
unknown|10 years ago
[deleted]
tdy721|10 years ago
jkldotio|10 years ago
"MMRTG contains a total of 10.6 pounds (4.8 kilograms) of plutonium dioxide (including Pu-238) that initially provides approximately 2,000 watts of thermal power and 110 watts of electrical power when exposed to deep space environments."[1]
Even if ~110 watts per ~4.8 kilograms is good for legs in agile situations, as opposed to wheels in a slow-and-steady rover, losing one in combat means you've just given the enemy a few kilos of radioactive material.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Rat_Things [1]http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/files/mep/MMRTG_FactSheet_update_10...
idlewords|10 years ago
outside1234|10 years ago
varjag|10 years ago
Solar is not an option in practical transportation. The energy yield per surface area is way too low.
superkuh|10 years ago