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MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

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Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#141

Post by anthony_d »

IgorPartola wrote: post #140
anthony_d wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that. If your car had uncontrolled acceleration, for instance, would you consider use a crowd of people to slow you down or would you put it in the ditch? For the sake of argument that amounts to a left or right turn.

Say there are 10 people in this crowd. The optimal solution for the 11 of us is obviously to have my car drive off a cliff to the right, not into the crowd on the left. However, for me, the optimal solution is obviously to not drive off a cliff. However, your argument omits a couple of interesting details. First off, if a car can have uncontrolled acceleration, it can likely have any number of glitches. It may for ex…

As a person and a driver I'm willing to say the car should drive off the cliff.

As a developer I wouldn't buy a car that would drive off the cliff.

It's a tough problem. Personally I would make a quickly/poorly thought out analysis of how to do the least damage. Being human I'd probably get it wrong.

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#142

Post by vlasev »

gadders wrote: post #90
vlasev wrote: post #31

No one seems to be discussing how this can be improved! Here are a few points: 1. Real cheetahs don't run like that. The action of both pairs of legs is staggered for smoother motion and control. Check this out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131wvVGjZUc 2. Looking at this jumping-over-obstacles video, it seems like the robot is lacking flexibility. The real life cheetah's hind legs go quite a bit underneath in pre…

Yeah! And whilst we're at it, wings on aeroplanes don't flap either. RUBBISH. /sarcasm

Hahah, you are so clever! Do you have anything beyond sarcastic remarks though?

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#143

Post by IgorPartola »

anthony_d wrote: post #141
IgorPartola wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say there are 10 people in this crowd. The optimal solution for the 11 of us is obviously to have my car drive off a cliff to the right, not into the crowd on the left. However, for me, the optimal solution is obviously to not drive off a cliff. However, your argument omits a couple of interesting details. First off, if a car can have uncontrolled acceleration, it can likely have any number of glitches. It may for ex…

As a person and a driver I'm willing to say the car should drive off the cliff. As a developer I wouldn't buy a car that would drive off the cliff. It's a tough problem. Personally I would make a quickly/poorly thought out analysis of how to do the least damage. Being human I'd probably get it wrong.

I am more or less in the same boat as you. I do however think that a simple algorithm of "save people in the car" is better than "try to save objects identified as people outside the car" because it is simple and in the long run likely very effective. Making computers make moral/ethical decisions is difficult, especially with poor inputs.

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#144

Post by vlasev »

snowwrestler wrote: post #124
vlasev wrote: post #31

No one seems to be discussing how this can be improved! Here are a few points: 1. Real cheetahs don't run like that. The action of both pairs of legs is staggered for smoother motion and control. Check this out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131wvVGjZUc 2. Looking at this jumping-over-obstacles video, it seems like the robot is lacking flexibility. The real life cheetah's hind legs go quite a bit underneath in pre…

The biggest difference is that the spine on this robot is not articulated. Most of a cheetah's power for running comes from the strength and flexibility of the muscles along its spine. It's just hard to beat the density and flexibility of a living mammal with a bunch of servos, chips, and batteries. We probably never will.

I'm not talking about power here. I'm talking about flexibility though. I think it won't be a stretch to think the hind legs range of motion could be extended by 10-15 degrees so the hind legs could hit a point further along the way.

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#145

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

deepnet wrote: post #88

Stuart Russel of AI a Modern Approach fame ( with Norvig ) asks us to consider the ethics of AI research - killer robotics, & hunter drones. http://www.nature.com/news/robotics-ethics-of-artificial-int... He calls for a moritorium until we can get a neural net to learn Asimov's 1st Law. Should the self driving car swerve into you to avoid greater moral hazard ? Humour aside as researchers and robotocists do we have a…

I, Robot was an expose on why Asimov's Laws of Robotics don't work.

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#146

Post by sopooneo »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #119

All of this is neat stuff. That said, for some reason I am still bothered by the use of laser range finders. To me it makes it all feel like a parlor trick. The easiest way to produce machines that can be used in "Oh, wow! Look at that!" videos that continue to bring in grants. These robots should use binocular vision and nothing else. Oh, wait a minute, that's hard, isn't it? Yup.

Why? Why should they be limited to the same hardware configuration as their biological analogues?

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#147

Post by vlasev »

bliti wrote: post #46
vlasev wrote: post #31

No one seems to be discussing how this can be improved! Here are a few points: 1. Real cheetahs don't run like that. The action of both pairs of legs is staggered for smoother motion and control. Check this out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131wvVGjZUc 2. Looking at this jumping-over-obstacles video, it seems like the robot is lacking flexibility. The real life cheetah's hind legs go quite a bit underneath in pre…

1.The goal is not to build a cheetah, buy to learn from them. One thing to consider is that this team is constrained by materials. What works for an animal will likel not transfer directly due to the difference in materials. Harmonics are well absorbed by tissue but the robot may have issues with them. 2. How did you come to this conclusion? Have you built a robot that mimics an animal? If so, may you provide some in…

To your first point, wouldn't a robot like that benefit from staggering the action of the legs? Instead of X impact at one point in time, have X/2 impact at two points in time? Would that create too much strain?

For my conclusion in point two, my insight comes from experience of copying animal movement. When I trained parkour my friends and I would copy animal movement from across the whole animal kingdom[1]. Here's an example of quadrupedal movement[2]. A big problem for us bipeds in trying to run like quadrupeds is that our legs tend to be big, long and inflexible, while our arms tend to be much weaker than our legs. The effect of this combination is to make running properly like a an animal which evolved to run on all fours quite difficult. From my own experience, putting my legs more and more forward past my arms (i.e. copying the cheetah), made for a much easier time.

If you were to try to run like the robot, with symmetrical action, it would be extremely uncomfortable, because the impact is large at every step. Staggering the action allows for a much smoother run. Make any human run like that and they'll eventually automatically switch to the less impactful staggered run.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymg1-Fhl69w

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8oh5Xuy7NA

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#149

Post by malkia »

IgorPartola wrote: post #120
deepnet wrote: post #88

Stuart Russel of AI a Modern Approach fame ( with Norvig ) asks us to consider the ethics of AI research - killer robotics, & hunter drones. http://www.nature.com/news/robotics-ethics-of-artificial-int... He calls for a moritorium until we can get a neural net to learn Asimov's 1st Law. Should the self driving car swerve into you to avoid greater moral hazard ? Humour aside as researchers and robotocists do we have a…

> Should the self driving car swerve into you to avoid greater moral hazard? The self-driving car's first priority should be to protect those inside it. Anything else is more complicated. I read an article a little while ago about this topic and it posed a question along the lines of "should a self-driving car do the thing that'll kill its own passengers, yet save a larger number of others around it?" Think about how…

Most-obvious, but a self-driving would be riding "alone" for long periods of time. For example "sending" car from one member of the family to another (or one client to another for use), or maybe delivering items from the store directly into a box. So in this case, the car should have the other mode, which is not safe for the car, but from whatever is outside, but now that I've typed it, even that I don't know the details, I feel that's probably too complicated.

Re: MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video]

#150

Post by hamitron »

cortesoft wrote: post #138
IgorPartola wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should the self driving car swerve into you to avoid greater moral hazard? The self-driving car's first priority should be to protect those inside it. Anything else is more complicated. I read an article a little while ago about this topic and it posed a question along the lines of "should a self-driving car do the thing that'll kill its own passengers, yet save a larger number of others around it?" Think about how…

Eh, I don't know. Lots of people would swerve their car into a tree to avoid hitting a person. They put themselves at risk to avoid killing someone.

I think this is because I would feel responsible for killing that person. If my self-driving car hit the person, I may feel bad, but probably not responsible.
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