The ART Project’s Nuclear Inspection Centaur Robot After the earthquake last year and the resulting damage to the Fukushima nuclear plant, observers criticized Japan’s lack of preparedness. In particular, many felt that the Japanese robotics sector’s focus on expensive humanoids had squandered time and resources better spent on more specialized robots. However, this isn’t totally …
Plot Summary for Rikky and Pete (1988) Follow the lives of Rikky, a talanted geologist, and her brother Pete, an off-the-wall mechanical genius. To find peace of mind they travel to the outbacks of Australia and meet up with a desert mining town full of zany individualists. In the movie, Pete builds a newspaper folding and …
First-Step by David Buckley September 1987 Four Legged Walking Robot, uses 3-D pantograph arrangement to produce a gravitationally decoupled leg mechanism similar to that used by Shigeo Hirose, A Study of Design and Control of a Quadruped Walking Vehicle, The International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol 3, No. 2, 1984. Won a Silver medal …
Research on Quadruped Walking Machines KUMO-I (1976, see photo above), PV-II (1978-1979, see here). The method of locomotion called "walking" requires considerably more actuators than the wheel me thod of locomotion, the drive system is heavy; and it is not simple to control. However, walking machines, because they can move while separately selecting the point …
An entirely different approach by Spartaco Maratori(8) produced his 'Golden Horse' which, in the final analysis, is somewhat similar to Shigley's approach. Maratori based his concept on an analysis of the locomotion of the horse. He studied the way horses walk, trot, and gallop and after carefully cataloging the various leg motions, attempted to duplicate …