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We seem to have a new entry at the top of the “Robots That Creep Us Out” leaderboard: meet LEONARDO, the quadcopter / bipedal robot combination.
LEONARDO, a somewhat tortured name derived from ‘LEgs ONboard drOne’, is actually exactly what it appears to be: a quadcopter with footwork. It comes to us from the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies at Caltech, and the video below makes it easy to see what kinds of benefits a cinematic mash-up like this would provide. LEO combines walking and flying to achieve a kind of locomotion that looks completely alien, a kind of tiptoe bouncing step that really looks like someone learning to walk in high heels. LEO’s superior drone appearance provides much of the stabilization needed for walking; the thrust of the rotors is where this bouncy compliance comes from. But the rotors can also instantly increase thrust so LEO can fly over obstacles, like stairs. He is also very good at slacklining and skateboarding.
It’s easy to see how LEO’s multimodal locomotion system solves – or more accurately, avoids – a number of problems that real-world bipedal robots are going to encounter. For now, LEO is quite small – only about 30 ″ (76 cm) high. And it’s pretty light, as you would expect for something that has to fly every now and then. But it’s easy to see how something like this could be extended, at least to a point. And LEO’s stabilization system might be just what its drunken walking cousin needs.
Thanks to [qes] for the tip.
[via Tech Xplore]
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