BigDog
Encyclopedia
Quadruped
Quadrupedalism is a form of land animal locomotion using four limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a quadrupedal manner is known as a quadruped, meaning "four feet"...
robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
created in 2005 by Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics design company best known for the development of BigDog, a quadruped robot designed for the U.S. military with funding from DARPA, and DI-Guy, COTS software for realistic human simulation...
with Foster-Miller
Foster-Miller
Foster-Miller, Inc., is a United States based military robotics manufacturer, a division of the United Kingdom's QinetiQ North America. Its two best-known products are TALON robots and LAST Armor....
, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...
, and the Harvard University Concord Field Station. BigDog is 3 foot (0.9144 m) long, stands 2.5 foot (0.762 m) tall, and weighs 240 pounds (108.9 kg), about the size of a small mule. It is capable of traversing difficult terrain, running at 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h), carrying 340 pounds (154.2 kg), and climbing a 35 degree incline. 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.
History
BigDog is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...
(DARPA) in the hopes that it will be able to serve as a robotic pack mule
Mule
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...
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 was featured in episodes of Web Junk 20
Web Junk 20
Web Junk 20 is an American television program in which Vh1 and iFilm collaborate to highlight the twenty funniest and most interesting clips collected from the Internet that week. The show is now hosted by comedian Aries Spears. Patrice O'Neal hosted the first two seasons, while Jim Breuer hosted...
and Hungry Beast
Hungry Beast
Hungry Beast is an Australian television program, that is broadcast on Wednesday nights on ABC1 and repeated on Thursday night on ABC2. It is produced by Andrew Denton's production company,...
, and in articles in New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
, Popular Science
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
, Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...
, and The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the 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.
Hardware
Big Dog is powered by a two-stroke, one-cylinderSingle cylinder engine
A single-cylinder engine is a basic piston engine configuration of an internal combustion engine. It is often seen on motorcycles, auto rickshaws, motor scooters, mopeds, dirt bikes, go-karts, radio-controlled models and has many uses in portable tools and garden machinery...
, 15-HP go-kart engine operating at over 9,000 RPM. The engine drives a hydraulic pump, which in turn drives the hydraulic leg actuator
Actuator
An actuator is a type of motor for moving or controlling a mechanism or system. It is operated by a source of energy, usually in the form of an electric current, hydraulic fluid pressure or pneumatic pressure, and converts that energy into some kind of motion. An actuator is the mechanism by which...
s. 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 a ruggedized PC/104
PC/104
PC/104 is an embedded computer standard controlled by the which defines both a form factor and computer bus. PC/104 is intended for specialized embedded computing environments where applications depend on reliable data acquisition despite an often extreme environment...
board stack with a Pentium 4
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 was a line of single-core desktop and laptop central processing units , introduced by Intel on November 20, 2000 and shipped through August 8, 2008. They had a 7th-generation x86 microarchitecture, called NetBurst, which was the company's first all-new design since the introduction of the...
class computer running QNX
QNX
QNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...
.
See also
- BioroboticsBioroboticsBiorobotics is a term that loosely covers the fields of cybernetics, bionics and even genetic engineering as a collective study.Biorobotics is often used to refer to a real subfield of robotics: studying how to make robots that emulate or simulate living biological organisms mechanically or even...
- Legged Squad Support SystemLegged Squad Support SystemThe Legged Squad Support System is the project of a legged robot, planned successor to the BigDog quadruped robot.-Specifications:The Legged Squad Support System is to "Go where dismounts go, do what dismounts do, work among dismounts". The machine is to carry 400lb of squad equipment, sense and...
, the next phase of the Big Dog project