b'Look-AheadBETTER-BALANCED ROBOTSR esearchers at Carnegie Mellon UniversitysRobotics Institute havedesigned a systemthat makes an off-the-shelf quadruped robot nimble enough to walk a narrow bal-ance beama feat that is likely the first of its kind.Thisexperimentwashuge, saidZachary Manchester, assistant professor at the institute and head of theRobotic Exploration Lab. I dont think anyone has ever suc-cessfully done balance beam walk-ing with a robot before.By leveraging hardware often used to control satellites in space, he and his team offset existing con-straints in the design of the quad-rupedtoimproveitsbalancing capabilities. Carnegie Mellon UniversityThe standard elements of mostResearchers have designed a system that makes an off-the-shelf quadruped robot nimble modern quadruped robots includeenough to walk a narrow balance beama feat that is likely the first of its kind.a torso and four legs that each end in a rounded foot, allowing thectemag.comrobot to traverse basic, flat surfaces and even climb stairs. The designTo watch the robot in action, view a video presentation resembles a four-legged animal.at www.ctemag.com by scanning the QR code with your But unlike cheetahs, which use theirsmartphone or entering this URL on your web browser: qr.ctemag.com/1l7intails to control sharp turns, or fall-ing cats, which adjust their orienta- how can we improve their balance? cal engineering graduate students tions in midair with the help of theirThe solution by the team employsShuo Yang and Benjamin Boksor. flexible spines, quadruped robotsa reaction wheel actuator, or RWA,If you spin the heavy flywheel one do not have such instinctive agility.system that mounts to the back ofway, it makes the satellite spin the As long as three feet of the robota quadruped robot. With the aid ofother way. Now take that and put it remain in contact with the ground,a novel control technique, the RWAon the body of a quadruped robot.the robot can avoid tipping over.permits the robot to balance inde- Manchester predicts that quadru-But if only one or two feet are on thependently of the positions of its feet. ped robots soon will transition from ground, the robot cant correct eas- RWAs are used commonly in thebeing primarily research platforms ily for disturbances and has a muchaerospace industry to perform alti- in labs to becoming widely available higher risk of falling. This lack of bal- tude control on satellites by manip- products for commercial use, simi-ance makes walking over rough ter- ulating the angular momentum oflar to where drones were about 10 rain particularly difficult. spacecraft. years ago.With current control methods, aYou basically have a big flywheelQuadrupeds are the next big quadruped robots body and legswith a motor attached, said Man- thing in robots, he said. I think are decoupled and dont speak tochester, who worked on the proj- youre going to see a lot more of them one another to coordinate theirect with Robotics Institute graduatein the wild in the next few years.CTEmovements, Manchester said. Sostudent Chi-Yen Lee and mechani- Kayla Papakiectemag.com/cteguide.com57LookAhead.indd 57 8/15/23 2:50 PM'