Six-legged robot loses a leg, thinks about it, trundles on regardless

Kawasaki Heavy Industries has created the world's first stainless-steel robot, a robotic arm actually, with seven degrees of freedom. This new robot has unprecedented levels of movement, due to those seven degrees, for a robot made of this material. The seven degrees translate into seven joints which give it precision and agility to get its work done. The robot will be used to automate experiments that use dangerous chemicals in the drug discovery and pharmaceutical fields.Creating the robot with a stainless steel body allows it to work in a sterile environments and withstand sterilization with hydrogen peroxide gas. Kawasaki plans to introduce the robotic arm to market in January 2014.

What good is a robot if, when left to its own devices, it breaks down at the first sign of trouble? What if that robot has been sent off to some inhospitable place where rescue is impossible, much less repair. Robots on the cutting edge are expensive things, so the ability to self-repair could be extremely valuable. But if it can't self-repair, the ability to simply make do would be rather useful too. That's the thinking behind this hexapod robot which can work out how best to adjust its gait in the unfortunate event that it loses a leg.Developed by roboticists at the Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University, the hexapod uses what the team calls a T-resilience the T standing for Transferability-based algorithm.

With six legs, the hexapod tootles along quite happily at 26 cm/s. But cut one of its front legs in half and, attempting to walk with the same gait, it manages only 8 cm/s. But after running 20 minutes' worth of simulations and tests, the robot has worked out a new way of walking, and is able to cover 18 cm/s, more than twice its initial post-damage speed.Essential to this approach is that the robot is fore-armed with what the researchers refer to as a self-model, which is basically an understanding of its ideal undamaged anatomy. Previous thinking on the issue had it that it's necessary for the robot to analyze its new gait to diagnose the damage and 'pensate accordingly.