“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.”
— Alfred North Whitehead
Humanoid/Legged Robots
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HUMANOID AND LEGGED ROBOTS
We have had many interesting projects over the years, one of which concerned an analysis of Humanoid and Legged Robots, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is about to initiate a new legged robot program (Legged Squad Support System (LS3)) and, in the near future, may initiate a program to develop and demonstrate a humanoid robot.
The purpose of the project was to perform a technology assessment of supervised autonomous intelligent humanoid robots, to examine current technology and systems to determine the feasibility of humanoid robots, and other legged robots, for militarily useful behavior in the near to far term (e.g., years 2002 - 2030) and to provide a technology roadmap for developing and demonstrating a humanoid robot for a selected military mission. The expectation is that DARPA will support the development and demonstration of militarily useful humanoid robots.
There are a number of ongoing programs in the Department of Defense (DOD) for the development of combat robotics, but they emphasize the development wheeled or tracked vehicle platforms, not humanoid robots. But the world of artifacts is designed by humans for humans – such as tools, buildings, and vehicles. A humanoid robot, with biped legs, dexterous arms and hands, and sufficient intelligence, could function smoothly in that world: moving about in buildings, climbing stairs or ladders, opening doors with doorknobs instead of force, using existing tools, operating existing machinery, driving existing vehicles - and firing existing weapons. In the natural environment, military wheeled vehicles can operate on about 30% of the earth’s land surface, and military tracked vehicles can travel on about 50%. Legged organisms and machines, including bipedal humanoids, can travel over nearly the entire land surface.
Also, humans will interact most easily with robots that appear to be human. While programs in several countries are focused on developing humanoid robots, Japanese companies, in general, have expended the most effort in developing humanoid robots. Although these robots have advanced sensing and control for autonomic effector movement (such as walking), they are limited in their autonomous interaction with the environment. Because the U.S. is more advanced in autonomous intelligent control (albeit, for vehicles), an interesting project would be to integrate a U.S. control system (such as the NIST hybrid 4D/RCS) with a suitable humanoid robot. The resulting autonomous, intelligent, robots will have widespread military and civil applications and benefits.