They invent a bipedal robot capable of walking across any surface and only with a motor
There are many bipedal robots on the market, many designed for exploration and others for natural disaster issues, but until now many of them required intricate designs, which evidently did not facilitate their movement.
Typically, the design of bipedal robots It involves the use of multiple motors that must work together to coordinate movements, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have gone much further by using only one motor.
Until now, being able to make a small robot biped that can steer itself and carry its energy source has proven to be quite a technical challenge, especially when it comes to questions of natural disaster scenarios.
“The first direction of the project was to simplify as much as possible the way robots walk,” he says. James Kyle of the mechanical engineering department. “Once we understand how scaling affects locomotion, it can be extremely useful to take something that already exists and scale it up or down to do things like fit through smaller pipes or carry more cargo.”
Now they have managed to make the little robot called Mugatuwhich consists of two rigid bodies and an actuator and which, despite its simplistic design, can achieve complex movements.
On the other hand, it is an autonomous robot and can walk independently and stably. You can walk left or right or continue walking straight when required.
On the other hand, it also contains a sensor that calculates the energy needed to walk a certain distance.
What this team of researchers aims to do is create smaller and smaller robots, the size of a LEGO pieceand evidently simplify the action of walking achieved with a single motor.
We don’t know if researchers will one day be able to create bipedal robots the size of a LEGO piece, but the truth is that if they can perform this walking movement with a single motor, it is already a considerable advance.
