7 New Species of Robot That Jump, Dance – and Walk on Water | Dennis Hong | TED

Exactly 12 years ago in a TEDx Talk,

I introduced my seven species of robot.

A unique three-legged robot called STriDER,

a wheel-leg hybrid robot called IMPASS,

an amoeba robot and many more.

Now, 12 years is a pretty long time,

especially in a cutting-edge field like robotics.

How have our robots evolved during the past 12 years?

What new species of robot have we built since then?

Hello, my name is Dennis Hong,

and today, I would like to show you our next seven species of robot.

Since my last TEDx Talk,

we’ve been focusing on the development of humanoid robots:

robots that look like us,

two legs, torso, two arms and a head.

Let me show you some of the humanoid robots

that we developed at our lab, RoMeLa.

DARwIn is a miniature humanoid robot for research and education

that we made fully open-source.

(Laughter)

CHARLI is considered the United States’

very first full-sized humanoid robot.

THOR-RD is for disaster relief applications

and Shipboard Autonomous Fire fighting Robot, SAFFiR and THOR,

which uses this unique biologically-inspired actuator.

And many more.

I think we built more than a dozen different types of humanoid robots.

However, after more than a decade of humanoid robotics research,

I'm starting to have different thoughts.

Now humanoid robots are important and they're great.

However, they always fall down, they’re too unstable.

And they’re painfully slow.

Yes, these days we’re trying to develop technology

that resolves these two problems,

but still, they are too expensive and they’re too complicated.

And most importantly, they’re too dangerous.

You do not want to be next to these big, heavy moving robots.

It might fall on top of you.

So what do we do?

(Laughter)

Now, why is it so difficult to make robots walk with two feet?

I mean, we do it all the time.

So once I wanted to throw away everything I know about robotics for a moment

and try to think fundamentally,

why is it so difficult to make robots walk with two feet?

And I found something fascinating.

So check this out.

Now, when your robot tries to move forward,

one of the reasons why it constantly falls down

is because the distance between your left and right leg.

Because your legs move forward and backward, up and down,

it creates this unwanted twisting forces,

we call these moments, right?

Now, this is a video called a RoboOne Competition.

It's a robot fighting competition.

And people who participate in this competition are robot hobbyists.

And if you look at the robots, they develop, it’s brilliant.

It's fast, it's nimble, and it doesn't fall down.

And if you look carefully,

they always walk sideways,

Because if you walk sideways,

your left and right leg line up, so your twisting moments disappear.

I actually got this inspiration by watching sports,

fencing or ballet.

They always walk sideways, and I think this is the reason why.

Now, one of the problems of trying to make robots move sideways

is you cannot really use your knees.

So what do we do?

We rotate our legs.

It looks kind of awkward, right?

So actually, let's change the entire torso like this

and make it walk this way.

Now, the problem of this kind of configuration

is that you really cannot use your feet and ankles.

So what do we do?

We get rid of them.

Now let's make more changes, let's change the shin.

And while doing that, let's change the head.

And something strange starts to emerge.

This is NABi, Non Anthropomorphic Biped.

In other words, it's a robot with two legs,

but it does not look like a human.

How does it walk?

It walks like this.

Simple, fast, easy, low cost.

This is great.

Now, I briefly mentioned about a robot called SAFFiR,

Shipboard Autonomous Fire Fighting Robot that we built.

This is a robot for Navy ships.

And I don't know if you've been on a Navy ship, but if you open this door,

it has a really high door seal.

We call that “knee-knockers.”

Before we had this robot, it was very difficult for the robot to climb over it.

But if a robot does not have to be like a human,

we can do something like this.

Make the knee rotate at 360 degrees.

Brilliant!

Isn't this cool?

(Laughs)

Yeah.

Our robots can climb stairs, but it's rather difficult.

But now we can climb stairs like this.

Now, is this just simulation and animation? No.

In two weeks, from the idea, analysis, design and fabrication,

in two weeks, we built our first robot.

And you have not seen anything like this.

(Video) Man: You're wild.

And we use many different types of tricks.

For example, utilize the springiness of the feet

we can store the energy and make it hop and jump.

When we first introduced NABi to the community,

it had a pretty good impact on the community.

However, this robot is great for walking forward and backward.

But how does it change directions?

It can't.

So we decided to work on the next version called ALPHRED.

ALPHRED stands for Autonomous Leg Personal Helper Robot

with Enhanced Dynamics.

So think of this robot as two NABis stacked onto each other.

So it looks like this.

So this robot is axisymmetric,

which means that there's no forwards, backwards or sideways.

Now, when it walks, it has a very wide stance, right?

So it can walk like this.

And this is great for unstructured outdoor environments.

However, it's pretty slow.

If you want to make it go really fast, you can change your body configuration.

And if you go like this,

you can have your forward legs and backward legs,

and then you can gallop like a horse.

There you go. (Laughs)

And when you lift two of the arms it can walk like NABi,

then the two of the other legs can be used as arms

to pick up boxes or press buttons.

And we're pretty excited about this new type of configuration.

We call this multimodal locomotion, and this is ALPHRED.

Now, while developing these robots,

we've been also working on this new type of actuator.

Now, when we say actuators, we're talking about these devices

that make the robots move just like muscles in humans.

Now, most of the robots that exist today,

electric robots, use electric motors with gears, right?

And these are really strong,

and they're precise, they're good for manufacturing.

But for legs, we need something different.

We need something like biological muscles that's compliant, springy,

and not only the position, but also change the force.

And we developed a new type of actuator called the BEAR actuator.

Now, using this BEAR actuator with the NABi,

we developed a second version called NABi-2.

Now, if you remember, NABi was our experiment

for studying a new type of bipedal locomotion.

But it turns out that this NABi with these new actuators

doesn't work very well in terms of walking.

However, unexpectedly, we didn't know this,

but this robot is great for jumping and hopping.

It can jump forward, backward and turn directions, it's brilliant.

But the really cool thing is, once it jumps and when it lands,

the motors become generators, and the impact is changed to electricity.

And it can charge its battery, so it’s very energy efficient.

And NABi-2 is ready to go.

Or not. (Laughs)

But this is NABi-2.

So BEAR actuator with NABi was NABi-2,

then BEAR actuator with ALPHRED is --

ALPHRED-2.

And this is the next generation of ALPHRED.

So this is the very first time we turned on the switch.

Look carefully at the reaction of our students.

(Video) Man: Whoa! Oh, my God!

What the -- ?

Dennis Hong: Excuse me. (Laughs)

(Video) (Man shouts excitedly)

Oh, my!

Man 2: That was amazing!

I think it jumped about 1.4 meters.

This is remarkable.

Walking is also very fast and stable.

So we wanted to do something more interesting.

We wanted to make it do taekwondo.

(Video) (Men shouting excitedly) Whoa!

DH: We're just having too much fun.

And ALPHRED-2 is ready to go.

Now, ALPHRED-2 is actually a very practical robot.

For example, this is an example of picking up a box,

delivering it and putting it nicely on the ground or on the table.

I sped up the video because it was pretty slow,

but you can get an idea how we can use these new type of robots

for different applications.

And this is ALPHRED-2.

Now, we looked at two legs.

We looked at four legs.

What about six legs?

Of course, we have a hexapod robot.

Now, this robot, HEX, is about the size of a small car.

Now, the cool thing about six-legged robots is this.

Now, to have static stability,

the minimum number of contacts with the ground is three.

Think of a camera tripod.

If you have a hexapod robot,

you can always have three-point contact with the ground.

Three, three, three.

And this makes it really great for outdoor environment,

rough environment.

This particular robot we're developing for demining applications,

getting rid of landmines underground autonomously.

If you see it in person, it’s kind of scary,

it's big and goes like this.

(Laughs)

So this is HEX.

We also have a smaller version,

this is called SiLVIA: Six Legged Vehicle with Intelligent Articulation.

And as I mentioned, these type of robots are really great

for unstructured terrain such as this.

It can also climb up and down stairs.

And this robot might be the strongest six-legged robot out there.

(Video) Man: Ah, 20 kilograms.

DH: Now, the reason why we wanted to make it really strong

is because we want this robot to do some very interesting new type of stuff.

So this is the very first robot that can brace between walls and climb up.

So it's like Spiderman, isn't that cool?

And it has some other tricks, too.

If you put suction cups on the feet, it can stick to the wall and climb.

And if you give it an arm,

it can do some fun stuff on the blackboard, too.

And this is SiLVIA.

So we talked about vertical mobility.

Twelve years ago, in my last TEDx Talk, I introduced a robot called CLIMBeR.

It's a robot for climbing cliffs using cables like a human.

But this year, we wanted to get rid of the cable.

We wanted to make it do free climbing.

And I'm very excited to introduce a brand new robot called SCALER,

Spine Enhanced Climbing Autonomous Legged Exploration Robot.

Now, when you first look at it,

it looks like a quadruped robot, four-legged robot.

It's actually very strong, but strength is not all.

We had to develop this new type of gripper,

we call these spine grippers,

that can really grab onto the surfaces.

And this video,

we just took it a few days ago.

So literally, it's taking its very first few steps.

Now, why are we interested in cliff-climbing robots?

Rescue missions, of course.

But we're really interested in the planetary applications.

Now, as you know, on Mars,

we had these Rovers discovering the new planet.

However, the really science-rich sites are always at the cliffs,

and these Rovers cannot get there.

So something like this will enable those kind of exploration,

in the science-rich sites on planetary surfaces.

This is SCALER.

Now, we talked about legs, but what about wheels?

Of course, we have robots with wheels.

This is called OmBURo,

Omnidirectional Balancing Unicycle Robot.

And as the name implies, it has one wheel,

it's omnidirectional,

it can go forward, backwards, sideways and diagonal.

But if we look at it, it doesn’t even need to change its orientation.

When you see it, it's almost like magic.

It feels like it's gliding over the surface.

Isn't that cool?

It can also balance and climb very steep surfaces.

Now it follows path, now, yes, it has one wheel,

but actually has these smaller rollers in the rim

to generate this kind of motion as well.

So why do we want to build a robot like this?

We like to have robots living with us in this environment,

and this environment sometimes is crowded, a lot of people or obstacles.

To go through people or to avoid obstacles,

it's very important to have a very small cross section,

and probably a single wheel is the best way to have a very small cross section.

And this is OmBURo.

Now, I’ve shown you many different shapes, sizes, mechanism robots.

And if you remember this, the whole thing started

because we had problems with this bipedal locomotion.

Is there a way to make these humanoid robots not fall at all?

There is.

And this robot is called BALLU.

This is my son, Ethan, by the way.

(Video) Ethan (Clapping and cheering)

Man: Uh-oh.

DH: What if robots never fell?

What if we could change the direction of gravity?

I'm very excited to show you our new robot, BALLU,

Buoyancy Assisted Lightweight Leg Unit.

This robot is a bipedal robot the size of a human being.

But the body is a helium balloon.

It's a balloon with two legs.

How does it walk?

It walks like this.

Very elegant, isn't it?

This robot might be the safest robot out there.

It can walk forward, backwards, sideways.

It can turn directions.

We want this robot to be living with us.

So it can climb upstairs, downstairs.

Go over obstacles.

It's fun to play with.

It can hop, now it can hop up to a height of a table top.

Oh, this robot is a good dancer.

If you turn on the music, it listens to beat and it dances to the beat.

(Music)

Now we do crazy things when we do experiments.

Once, we opened the window and threw the robot out the window.

Isn't it great?

It solves all the problems of bilateral locomotion.

It’s cheap, it doesn’t fall down.

However, it also creates new problems.

This robot is horrible outdoors

because if the wind blows, it floats away.

Now, these are some of the images of our secret projects.

I'm not going to explain it,

but we’re using projection mapping, vortex cannons, many different things.

Oh, this robot literally can walk on water.

You put ping-pong balls on the foot, it can walk on water.

It can also walk on a tightrope.

Isn’t this cool?

This is BALLU.

By the way, all of our videos end with a bang like this.

Isn’t that cool? This is BALLU.

(Laughs)

Thank you.

(Applause)

Now all of these new inventions and creativity

came from the problem of humanoid robots.

However, secretly, we've still been working on humanoid robots.

And this robot is called ARTEMIS, our latest one,

Advanced Robotics Technology for Enhanced Mobility

and Improved Stability.

And this is the very first time I'm showing it to the general public.

This is a sneak peek of what is about to come.

Now, this robot, ARTEMIS, uses a new type of technology.

It's based on that BEAR actuator.

And because it's so new, you cannot buy any of these components.

So we have to design and fabricate every single part of this robot.

We have just finished assembly of the lower body,

and I'm very excited to show you a sneak peek of robot ARTEMIS.

(Suspenseful music)

And ARTEMIS is coming too, I cannot wait to show it to you,

probably on stage in my next talk.

I've shown you a lot of our newest creation robots from our lab RoMeLa.

I would like to give credit to our brilliant,

hardworking students at RoMeLa.

But what is the source of this creativity?

What's the source of this energy?

What is the secret to this crazy productivity?

I think the next video will be able to answer that question.

(Music)

(Video) Man: Look at that.

DH: You remember BALLU?

We're doing the experiment of dancing.

By the way, this is Saturday, 2am in the morning.

(Music)

(Laughter)

We're having too much fun,

so, yeah, let's bring out all of our robots, one by one.

(Music)

You remember NABi?

(Music)

An early prototype of ALPHRED.

(Music continues)

Everybody's favorite, DARwIn-OP.

The rotating knee mechanism for NABi.

(Music continues)

The six-legged hexapod robot.

(Music continues)

This is RoMeLa, the Robotics and Mechanism Laboratory at UCLA.

(Music continues)

By the way, that's me on the left, dancing.

You probably haven't seen a professor dance and party with their students

while conducting serious experiments, right?

Openness, freedom, trust, having fun

and truly believing what you do can change the world.

These are some of the secrets behind our next seven species of robot.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)