Multimedia Gallery - Connected robots raise front robot over step.

June 9, 2016

Connected robots raise front robot over step.

Ronald Fearing and graduate student Carlos Casarez of the University of California, Berkeley recently tested a strategy for robots that are designed to run fast, not to climb or step over obstacles. They outfitted two VelociRoACH robots with radios, leg position sensors, gyroscopes and accelerometers to help the robots orient themselves, along with a small tether and winch system.

The researchers investigated "motion primitives" that would allow the robots to mount a step. Like small words that may be arranged to make sentences with many different meanings, motion primitives are simple actions that may be combined in different ways to accomplish a variety of tasks. The researchers demonstrated that by creating the right primitives, and combining them in the right order, the robot team could work together to reach the top of the step, then disconnect and continue exploring separately (watch the robots cooperate).

Watch the robots climb the step.

Learn more about robotics at www.nsf.gov/robots

Credit: Carlos Casarez, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

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