CHIMP, a Real-Live Transformer

The Carnegie Mellon University Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform, or CHIMP, gives Optimus Prime a run for his money. The machine usually moves like a tank, but instead of two treads it has four. When it needs to free up a couple of arms to operate a valve or flick a switch, the CHIMP stands up on its hind legs and unfolds its front limbs to reveal graspers.

While it looks like the stuff of a high-tech toy fair, CHIMP was built for bigger things?the DARPA Robotics Challenge, to be specific. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, the 27-month contest offers $2 million to the team of robotics researchers best able to produce a robot suited for "complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments." The ultimate goal is to develop new robots, both humanoid and non-humanoid, capable of responding to manmade and natural disasters.

The Carnegie Mellon team is in Track A of the DARPA competition, in which groups are designing their own bots (Track B groups use a terrifying DARPA-provided Atlas robot. In the physical trials, coming in December, the robots must drive a vehicle, travel over rubble, remove debris blocking an entryway, open a door and enter a building, climb a ladder, cross a walkway, use a tool to break through concrete, locate and close a leaky valve, and replace a piece of machinery.

Most of the Track A competitors are working on dynamically stable humanoid robots like the Atlas. But Tony Stentz, leader of the team working on CHIMP, thinks they?ll have an advantage with tracked locomotion.

"When [humans] walk or stand," he says, "our brains are actively controlling our balance all of the time." This is why humans are so nimble compared even the best robots. The need for unconscious control becomes an issue in creating bipedal robots, and Stentz feels the static stability of CHIMP, which will keep it from falling even if its computer has a glitch, will make it more dependable.

CHIMP has near-human strength and dexterity, chimp-like graspers on each limb, on-board sensors that can build texture-mapped, 3D models of the environment to help maintain stability and prevent collisions, and an immersive operator interface that allows the controller to seamlessly blend manual and autonomous control. And the adaptability of its four limbs, which an operator can control remotely, means that it can move nimbly and extricate itself from tight spots.

"In a pinch, it can do anything," Stentz said.

?Without much idea of what the competition is up to, it?s hard to say whether CHIMP will be able to beat all its humanoid counterparts?but for now, I think we can all agree that it looks awesome.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/chimp-a-real-live-transformer-15222858?src=rss

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