Blind Cheetah 3 robot can navigate obstacles, climb stairs
What's the story
Researchers from MIT have developed a four-legged robot called Cheetah 3 that can run, jump onto desks, and climb obstacle-laden stairs without visual sensors.
The 40kg, blind robot can also recover from adverse conditions like being shoved or yanked by relying on "feel" instead of cameras.
It will be presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots, Spain in October.
Breakthrough
Robot getting around without the power of vision
Cheetah 3's lead designer and associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT Sangbae Kim developed two new algorithms to provide the robot with "blind locomotion" capabilities.
Using those, the robot adjust its movements, decides what to do on detecting obstacles, determines how much force to use to perform actions like stepping forward and pulling back, and deals with unexpected forces like a kick.
Navigation skills
Use robots in tasks that humans are better off avoiding
Kim said, "Vision can be noisy, slightly inaccurate, and sometimes not available. So we want the robot to rely more on tactile information."
"I think there are countless occasions where we [would] want to send robots to do simple tasks instead of humans. Dangerous, dirty, and difficult work can be done much more safely through remotely controlled robots," he added.
Information
Not relying on vision helps the robot move fast
Kim primarily wants the robot to be able to "handle unexpected obstacles while moving fast." Ensuring this will let the robot carry out tasks like power planet inspections. Notably, Cheetah 3 will still use cameras to keep track of its surroundings.