Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics design company that is best known for the development of BigDog, a quadruped robot designed for the U.S. military with funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),[1][2] and DI-Guy, software for realistic human simulation. Early in the company's history, it worked with the American Systems Corporation under a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) to replace naval training videos for aircraft launch operations with interactive 3D computer simulations featuring DI-Guy characters.[3]
Marc Raibert is the company's president and project manager. He spun the company off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992.[4]
On 13 December 2013, the company was acquired by Google, where it will be managed by Andy Rubin.[5] Immediately before the acquisition, Boston Dynamics transferred their DI-Guy software product line to VT MÄK, a simulation software vendor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[6]
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BigDog is a quadrupedal robot created in 2005 by Boston Dynamics, in conjunction with Foster-Miller, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Harvard University Concord Field Station.[7] It is funded by the DARPA[8] in the hopes that it will be able to serve as a robotic pack mule to accompany soldiers in terrain too rough for vehicles. Instead of wheels, BigDog uses four legs for movement, allowing it to move across surfaces that would defeat wheels. Called "the world's most ambitious legged robot", it is designed to carry 340 pounds (150 kg) alongside a soldier at 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h; 1.8 m/s), traversing rough terrain at inclines up to 35 degrees.[9]
Legged Squad Support Systems (LS3) is similar to the BigDog.[10]
Cheetah
The Cheetah is a four-footed robot that gallops at 28 miles per hour (45 km/h; 13 m/s), which as of August 2012 is a land speed record for legged robots. The previous record was 13.1 miles per hour (21.1 km/h; 5.9 m/s), set in 1989 at MIT. Cheetah development is funded by DARPA's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program. This robot has an articulated back that flexes back and forth on each step, thereby increasing its stride and running speed, much like the animal does. The original Cheetah robot runs on a high-speed treadmill in the laboratory where it is powered by an off-board hydraulic pump and uses a boom-like device to keep it running in the center of the treadmill. A free-running Cheetah that will operate more naturally in the field, named the WildCat, was unveiled to the public on October 3, 2013.[11]
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LittleDog[edit]
LittleDog is a small quadruped robot developed for DARPA by Boston Dynamics for research. Unlike BigDog, which is run by Boston Dynamics, LittleDog is intended as a testbed for other institutions. Boston Dynamics maintains the robots for DARPA as a standard platform.[12][13]
RiSE is a robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences, using feet with micro-claws to climb on textured surfaces. It changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and its tail helps it balance on steep ascents. RiSE is 0.25 m long, weighs 2 kg, and travels 0.3 m/s.[14]
Each of RiSE's six legs is powered by a pair of electric motors. An onboard computer controls leg motion, manages communications, and services a variety of sensors, including joint position sensors, leg strain sensors and foot contact sensors.
Boston Dynamics developed RiSE in conjunction with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Lewis and Clark College. It was funded by DARPA.