The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s • Hacker News Board

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#71

Post by opless » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

larkeith wrote: post #15

gojomo wrote: post #2

Only millions? Amazing! To actually deliver a physical, one-of-a-kind, working vehicle of that scale & novel function, for low-digit millions, seems pretty impressive to me - especially if the effort documented enough of their choices/discoveries/limitations to help inform later efforts.

$5m by 1985, with another $3.5m earmarked [1]. Accounting generously for inflation, that's $25m today [2]. It would be interesting to know what the price would look like if they tried the same thing today. [1] https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1985/11/4/the-pentagon-f... [2] https://www.inflationtool.com/us-dollar/1981-to-present-valu...

Mantis by winchymatt perhaps?

A two ton diesel powered hexapod.

https://youtu.be/1h9Mw-s9mzI

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#72

Post by gdubs » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #23

Oh, that thing. Back when I was into legged locomotion, I found out more about that machine than I ever wanted to know. The designer was really into four-bar linkages. The leg mechanism is set up so that one actuator moves the leg in X, one in Y, and one in Z, with a four-bar linkage encoding that into the leg position. This simplifies the control problem, while complicating the mechanics. I suspect they wanted to be…

That timber harvester looks amazing. As I commented below, the weight distribution is a pretty appealing aspect for minimizing the impact on soil. Though, unclear how much better it is then the tank treads which also do a pretty good job distributing weight as far as I know?

Super cool though. Would be a nice way to selectively take out trees without tearing up a whole area for access, etc.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#73

Post by jacobwilliamroy » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

deathgrips wrote: post #43

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Everyone is poor and miserable, families arent making rent. My uncle was just dumpster diving to feed his family two months ago. They're wasting the people's money over at DARPA.

If your uncle is dumpster diving for food I doubt he pays any taxes after refunds.

We're in a global depression you bougie piece of shit. Don't shit talk my family.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#74

Post by 082349872349872 » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #23

Oh, that thing. Back when I was into legged locomotion, I found out more about that machine than I ever wanted to know. The designer was really into four-bar linkages. The leg mechanism is set up so that one actuator moves the leg in X, one in Y, and one in Z, with a four-bar linkage encoding that into the leg position. This simplifies the control problem, while complicating the mechanics. I suspect they wanted to be…

Related: tracked APC vs 4-legged (+wheeled) construction vehicle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBgzkKqCXzw

(Menzi Mucks are available with forestry attachments)

Bonus clip: (multi-metre obstacle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y85nfQuU0M

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#75

Post by ahelwer » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

AniseAbyss wrote: post #51

The things you can do when you don't have to tackle child poverty or provide healthcare for all. Its probably because of my Euro socialist identity but all I see is wasteful spending.

DARPA is basically just a way to hack the US' intensely militaristic nature to fund basic science & engineering advances. I'm happy some public money was spent researching robotic legged locomotion.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#76

Post by hutzlibu » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #64

hutzlibu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About the timber harvester: I assume better here is meant from a economical perspective, because from a ecological perspective the walkers are superior, as they do not devestate the ground so much. But that is sadly not really a issue for most wood production, but I could imagine, with rising awareness for the forests, market demand for not so intrusive wood harvesting(along with advances in the field in general) cou…

Would 500 trips with a giant mech walker wouldn’t hurt the forest as much as a dirt trail and wheels? Both would seem pretty messy

Well, yes, I know horsetracks who already look very bad, after regular riding.

But most forest paths are not driven (or walked) 500 times back and forth. Sometimes just once to go in, cut down and take it out. Enough to cut open the soil with the conventional foresters - but much less intrusive with mechanic legs.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#77

Post by crocodiletears » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

AniseAbyss wrote: post #51

The things you can do when you don't have to tackle child poverty or provide healthcare for all. Its probably because of my Euro socialist identity but all I see is wasteful spending.

This is why I believe the US should withdraw from NATO, and many of our other foreign military engagements. We could service our population's worst off so much better if we cut our global footprint to the bare minimum required to secure our most core interests (napkin math, but at ~150 billion usd, overseas bases make up ~20% of the DoD's budget[0]).

Even reallocating those expenses by a quarter would be a tremendous boon to our social services infrastructure while still allowing us to invest in new technologies.

[0] https://www.mintpressnews.com/214492-2/214492/

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#78

Post by lapsed_pacifist » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

AniseAbyss wrote: post #51

The things you can do when you don't have to tackle child poverty or provide healthcare for all. Its probably because of my Euro socialist identity but all I see is wasteful spending.

The Eurozone (NATO) is protected from Russia and other aggressors by US military spending, and trades along sea routes which are kept open by US military spending, to list only two ways in which the EU benefits massively from our tax dollars here in the US.

If the EU decided to allocate a proportional share to their common defense, maybe the US would have less reason to be intervening overseas and could spend some of our money here instead.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#79

Post by andbberger » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #13

gojomo wrote: post #2

Only millions? Amazing! To actually deliver a physical, one-of-a-kind, working vehicle of that scale & novel function, for low-digit millions, seems pretty impressive to me - especially if the effort documented enough of their choices/discoveries/limitations to help inform later efforts.

Millions seems about right. If it took more than $999 million I’d be pretty surprised. Hydraulics are tricky but they’re not that tricky.

The kinematics are the tricky part. Trajectory planning is still quite difficult today even with our speedy modern CPUs

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#80

Post by lopmotr » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 10:40 PM UTC

atum47 wrote: post #66

I've been talking about this kind of stuff with some friends. You can't just tell reality from fiction by the news, anymore. Sometimes is a crappy politician who you wouldn't believe act / say / do the things the news report (I'm Brazilian by the way, I have grounds to say this). Some other times is this crazy sci-fi things no one in a bar conversation would believe you if you told them. Go ahead, next time you're on…

What did you imagine the 1980's was like for this to be surprising? Hydraulic earthmoving equipment, statically-stable legged walking toys, and cheap computers were all in widespread use around the world by then. This is nothing like Boston Dynamics' robots because of the "dynamics" part.