Scientists got a robot to daintily scale a narrow beam using spacecraft tech.
have found a way to make an off-the-shelf quadruped robot agile and stable enough to walk across a balance beam.
Even for humans, the balance beam is quite a feat to conquer—something that leaves even gymnasts nervous. “It’s the great equalizer,” Michigan women’s gymnastics coach Beverly Plocki told the in 2016. “No other event requires the same mental focus. You stumble on the floor, it’s a minor deduction. The beam is the event of perfection. No room for error.”But in robot dogs, their legs aren’t exactly coordinated. If three feet can touch the ground, generally they are fine, but reduce that to one or two robot feet and you’re in trouble.
The team mounted two reaction wheel actuators on the pitch and roll axis of a commercial Unitree A1 robot, making it so the little bot could balance itself no matter where its feet were. Then, they did two dexterity tests—the first dropping it upside down from about half a meter in the air. Like a cat, the robot was able to flip itself over and land on its feet.
Second came the balance beam test, this time making the robot walk along a six-centimeter-wide balance beam, which the bot did with ballerina-like gracefulness. This could come in handy in the future, not only for purely entertainment value, but maneuvering tricky scenarios in the case of search-and-rescue, which is often a goal for
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