Ein neuer Roboter aus Lausanne kann wie Antilopen springen
Published: Tuesday, Apr 30th 2024, 15:50
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A new four-legged robot with artificial intelligence can seamlessly change its gait. With the aim of avoiding falls, the robot from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne switches between walking, trotting and jumping depending on the situation.
The robot was developed to investigate why animals switch between different gaits, as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) announced on Tuesday.
"Previous research has shown that animals change the way they walk in order to save energy and avoid musculoskeletal injuries," explained robotics researcher Milad Shafiee in the EPFL press release. However, experiments with animals and robots have shown that these explanations do not always apply.
The EPFL researchers suspected that animals also change their gait to avoid falling. To investigate this in more detail, they taught the robot to move independently on different surfaces.
Robots for biological research
This showed that the robot switched from walking to trotting on flat terrain to avoid falling over. And when the robot was confronted with holes in the ground, it switched from trotting to a so-called bounce. This is a kind of jump with stiff legs, like antelopes or cats do when they are frightened.
Viability, i.e. the ability not to fall, was therefore the only factor that was improved by such gear changes. The researchers published these results in the journal "Nature Communications".
"It seems that energy efficiency, which was previously thought to be the driving force behind such transitions, is more of a consequence. When an animal is moving in difficult terrain, its first priority is probably not to fall," says Shafiee.
According to EPFL, the researchers hope that robots will be increasingly used in biological research in the future in order to reduce dependence on animals and the associated ethical concerns.
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