PETMAN bipedal robot

[Dr Mordrid]

Link...

Boston Dynamics site....

YouTube link...

The latest innovation to come out of the Boston Dynamics labs is the Petman--a two-legged, upright robot that simulates the walking motion of human beings. And like its quadruped cousin the BigDog, this thing is equally creepy/hilarious (check out the shoes).

Used (at the moment) to test chemical warfare clothing for the US Army, the Petman is able to move at 3.2 mph, recreating the natural heel-toe stride that we employ in our walking motion.

In addition to walking, the Petman can crawl and perform various calisthenics, perspiring all the while from its artificial sweat glands. Boston Dynamics has few other details, except that it took 13 months to design and 17 months to build. But the video pretty much spooks--er--speaks for itself, so you're better off throwing that on repeat.

[Mehen]

Really cool.

One of the youtube comments:
"ALL I WANT IS A DECENT PAIR OF PANTS!"

[Evildead666]

Yup. Wars aren't gonna look the same again....

edit : and you can have as many as you want and they will work 24/7...

edit 2 : better eyes, ears....sensors.....

[Mehen]

And we could make them all look like Arnold!

[KRSESQ]

It would be useful to run off about a million robot soldiers on an assembly line. No manpower shortages and if one gets blown up you send it back for repairs (you don't leave tech like this lying around for an enemy to reverse-engineer!).

But I can't help feeling ambivalent about sending hordes of robots against an enemy, even under human command/control, even with highly refined Identify: Friend Or Foe programming. It strikes me as dispassionate, antiseptic. An elimination of one of the most fundamental factors that makes war something to avoid.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

We're already starting to train more UAV pilots than pilots for manned aircraft, and a lot of the current ones were taken out of manned craft and put on UAV consoles.

The Next Generation Bomber for 2018 is a UAV. Munitions could be as many as 400 guided (GPS or auto target recognition thermal) SDB's (small diameter bomb). The B2 can carry 200. SBD is a 250 lb bomb that has the has the same penetration capabilities as the 2,000 lb BLU-109.

For 2037 they want one that's super, or hyper, sonic.

[Wulfman]

funny, I thought humans walking barefooted are not doing the heel-toe thing. if they´d fix that, it would probably walk smoother. and possibly faster, anyway.

mfg
wulfman

[Dr Mordrid]

Depends on the speed of the gait. At low speeds humans walk heel-toe, though there is also a variation of toe-in/toe-out between bare, shoe or sandal walkers.

[dZeus]

Rise of the Machines PETMEN

Rise of the Machines PETMEN

Progress update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mclbVTIYG8E

[Dr Mordrid]