Check out the quadruped BigDog robot created by Boston Dynamics. Originally designed for the military and funded by (DARPA Defense Advanced Research Project’s Agency), the BigDog Robot can negotiate terrain up to 35 degrees, ice, debris and basically be your mechanical mule.
Now they’ve added a throwing arm which is quite impressive allowing the robot to hurl a cinder block about 15 feet using it’s entire body weight to both balance and generate momentum like a human would.
What would you use a throwing arm for? Picture a soldier under fire perhaps, stuck under ruble or perhaps to throw a grenade, investigate a hostile building… The possibilities are endless. The multi-purpose BigDog can also run at 5 miles per hour, not quite as fast as it’s sibling the Cheetah, which can achieve up to 28 miles per hour, but much more versatile.
If you haven’t seen it before, check out the video below, the BigDog resembles two human bodies from the waist down facing one another, attached at the hip, kind of like something out of the Beatles movie, The Yellow Submarine.
The organic movements and constant corrections to negotiate terrain and maintain balance is a bit erie but amazing. Check out the guy shoving the BigDog with a kick.
– bostondynamics.com
