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Extreme parkour with legged robots

extreme-parkour.github.io

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Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#111

Post by r3trohack3r »

lukevp wrote: post #80
nmca wrote: post #65

Whilst a lovely achievement, this title definitely overstates current robot abilities. Here is some human parkour for contrast: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHqAVaQqQWQ&t=106s

The difference being each human has to spend thousands of hours learning that level of control over their bodies, and work hard to maintain that level of physical fitness. And if they fall off the roof, millions of dollars of potential earnings and GDP die with them. Whereas these robots are only $70k, and once one of them can do this, they all can do it. Just like with Chess and Go. It’s not impressive at first, the…

$70K?

The one pictured appears to be $14k

https://m.unitree.com/en/a1/

Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#112

Post by pb060 »

noelwelsh wrote: post #29

I'm sure this is impressive for an autonomous robot. However, as a fan of real parkour its kinda annoying to see some modest jumps and walking on a slope labelled "extreme parkour". What the robot demonstrates I'd expect any healthy 10 year old to be able to equal.

Given the title, the video was indeed a bit disappointing but I imagine that “extreme” is ironic or at least relative.

Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#113

Post by jupp0r »

teraflop wrote: post #106
Animats wrote: post #42

" A single neural net policy operating directly from a camera image, trained in simulation with large scale RL, can overcome imprecise sensing and actuation to output highly precise control behavior end-to-end. " So that's what it takes. That's so much simpler than the way Boston Dynamics does it, working out all the dynamics in simulation first. It's amazing to see this done from vision to actuators in one net. It's…

Of course, the details of how to actually implement something like this are way more complex than "just throw everything into a big neural net with images as the inputs and actuators as the output". You need to provide the right kind of guidance in order to learn a usable policy in any reasonable amount of time. A very recent development (which this work builds on) is the idea of "online adaptation". It essentially i…

I guess this is why evolution is taking unreasonable amounts of time.

Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#114

Post by kaba0 »

johnthesecure wrote: post #92
foderking wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its actually hard for robots to compete with 10 year olds

Two years ago, the Boston Dynamics Atlas could do mid-air somersaults - that's better than most 10-year-olds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk

But worse at running then any able-bodied 10-years-old. Comparatively, a somersault is quite easy/well-controlled movement.

Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#116

Post by pjmlp »

nightpool wrote: post #3

As a reminder: CMU and its robotics program is intimately associated with the US Department of Defense, and although there are certainly civilian applications for this technology, one of the most likely short-term applications is improving legged drones for battlefield deployment (often, it should be said, in humanitarian roles, including search and rescue, or support roles, such as ammo, food, and water resupply, bu…

The Internet and UNIX systems supporting this comment, only exist thanks to US military money.

Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#118

Post by quickthrower2 »

lukevp wrote: post #80
nmca wrote: post #65

Whilst a lovely achievement, this title definitely overstates current robot abilities. Here is some human parkour for contrast: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHqAVaQqQWQ&t=106s

The difference being each human has to spend thousands of hours learning that level of control over their bodies, and work hard to maintain that level of physical fitness. And if they fall off the roof, millions of dollars of potential earnings and GDP die with them. Whereas these robots are only $70k, and once one of them can do this, they all can do it. Just like with Chess and Go. It’s not impressive at first, the…

The most impressive thing about the video is not the skill but the control of their fear.

Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#119

Post by raincole »

nmca wrote: post #65

Whilst a lovely achievement, this title definitely overstates current robot abilities. Here is some human parkour for contrast: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHqAVaQqQWQ&t=106s

I got the opposite conclusion from watching this video.

I feel the way the robots do it is similar to humans. Considering that's all emergency behaviours (not trained with animals' or humans' motion data) I believe that robots will exceed humans by far in few years.

Re: Extreme parkour with legged robots

#120

Post by littlestymaar »

saulpw wrote: post #76
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there's a glimmer of hope that someday both sides can send their robots to destroy one another, instead of their sons and daughters? I agree that initially there's an advantage to richer nations, but it's not like a $30M jet fighter, there could be parity.

That's not how it's going to work. There's no point in taking out a relatively cheap robot that can be replaced in a day, when you can take out a person that will take 20 years to be replaced.

But the person you're gonna take out is more likely to be a senior officer, rather than a 18 years old private.
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