Perhaps you`ve heard that Weebles wobble, however they do not fall down. That's a neat trick, however it is not anything in comparison to BALLU, in reality the maximum particular and progressive robotic you will stumble upon today. BALLU is an acronym for Buoyancy Assisted Lightweight Legged Unit (through New York Post), and it is basically a human-sized Party City balloon bouquet with a couple of flamingo legs. If you observed that sounds wild, wait till you discover what it may do.
The robotic is the brainchild of inventor and professor Dennis Hong. He created the authentic prototype at the same time as operating on the Robotics and Mechanism Laboratory — or RoMeLa, for the acronym buffs out there. RoMeLa is a part of UCLA's Samueli School of Engineering, which is seemingly the name of the game cabbage patch for cool robots and wearable tech. BALLU made its debut on the IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robots in 2016 in which it now no longer simplest became heads, however became the whole idea of strolling robots upside down.
In an interview with IEEE on the time, Hong said, "To get innovative ideas, occasionally we ask ourselves crazy, ridiculous questions." He went directly to provide an example: "What if we may want to extrade the path of gravity?" It became from that concept test that BALLU became born. The helium-stuffed frame almost counteracts the downward pull of gravity, making for a really light-weight robotic it truly is bodily not able to fall down. But for Hong and his team, that became simplest the beginning.
BALLU's bag of tricks
In a 2021 look at posted withinside the medical journal "Frontiers in Robotics and AI," Hong and his co-authors mentioned a number of the demanding situations going through humanity's shared destiny with robots. In particular, they be aware that after large and effective machines malfunction, they may be at risk of reason harm to themselves and their environments, and might also be a danger to human lives. This isn't always only a theoretical concern; it is been over forty years for the reason that first documented case of an automatic robotic killing a human.
Thanks to BALLU's skinny body and close to weightlessness, there is no hazard it is able to overwhelm a human. But it additionally isn't always well-acceptable for heavy lifting, either. Instead, they envision its number one payload to be information, which it'd keep in its legs the various relaxation of its digital components. Once it is prepared to move, BALLU genuinely receives around.
This cheaper robotic would not simply stroll forward, backward, turn, and hop. It is going up and down stairs. It can soar from remarkable heights. It can stroll a tightrope and journey a skateboard. It can dance if the event requires it. Heck, BALLU can actually stroll on water, and you could see it eager about your self withinside the video above. It even looks as if a quadruped model is withinside the works. While BALLU remains withinside the prototype phase, it is already proved that it is now no longer simply complete of warm air.
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