Adorable Walking Robot Sets Distance Record
Posted in: R&D and Inventions, research, Robots, Today's Chili
A four-legged robot nicknamed “Ranger” has set a distance record, walking 14.3 miles before it ran out of juice.
That amounts to 108.5 laps around the 1/8-mile indoor track at Cornell University’s Barton Hall — or 65,185 steps of Ranger’s spindly metal legs.
The robot’s journey took it 10 hours, 40 minutes and 48 seconds, using about a penny’s worth of electricity for each 3 miles it traversed. Although several humans accompanied it for parts of its stroll, Ranger was never touched by human hands during the journey.
Earlier versions of Ranger walked just 1 kilometer in 2006 and 9.07 kilometers (5.6 miles) in 2008.
Ranger’s steps are coordinated by 6 on-board microprocessors, but the robot’s steering is done by remote control. The “eyes” and “ears” on the robot are not sensors, but foam padding, designed to protect the robot in case of falls.
The research team that built Ranger was aiming for distance, not speed. By comparison, Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, an eerie quadrupedal robot built for carrying 300-pound loads, set the previous robot walking distance record of 12.8 miles. But BigDog is loud and frightening, while Ranger is quiet and kids love him (at least, one kid appears to).
See below for more photos and a video showing Ranger’s long walk. And for details and more photos, see the Cornell Ranger 2010 page at Cornell.edu.
Jason Cortell, Lipeng Yuan, Matthew Proudlove and Fatemeh Hasaneini accompany Ranger as it rounds the curve on an indoor track.
Humans Jason Cortell (on cart) and Lipeng Yuan may be at the limits of their endurance, but Ranger walks on.
At the end of the marathon walking session, Ranger and Jason Cortell take a much-needed break. Somebody call Beer Robot!
Top photo: Ranger completes a lap around the track, accompanied by Fatemeh Hasaneini, the 6-year-old daughter of one of the students who worked on the robot.
Photos and video courtesy Cornell University.
See Also:
- Wired 14.01: The 50 Best Robots Ever
- Why NASA Is Sending a Robot to Space That Looks Like You
- Jan. 25, 1979: Robot Kills Human
- Robot Band Backs Pat Metheny on Orchestrion Tour
Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter. And don’t overlook the world-dominating plans of Wired.com’s own Beer Robot.
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