| Industry | Robotics |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1992 |
| Headquarters | Waltham, Massachusetts, United States |
| Website | www.bostondynamics.com |
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics design company best known for the development of BigDog, a quadruped robot designed for the U.S. military with funding from DARPA,[1] and DI-Guy, COTS software for realistic human simulation. Early in the company's history, it worked with the American Systems Corporation under a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) to replace naval training videos for aircraft launch operations with interactive 3D computer simulations featuring DI-Guy characters.[2]
Marc Raibert is the company's president and project manager. He spun the company off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992.[3]
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BigDog is a quadruped robot created in 2005 by Boston Dynamics, in conjunction with Foster-Miller, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Harvard University Concord Field Station.[4] BigDog is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the hopes that it will be able to serve as a robotic pack mule to accompany soldiers in terrain too rough for vehicles. Instead of wheels, BigDog uses four legs for movement, allowing it to move across surfaces that would defeat wheels. What has been called "the world's most ambitious legged robot" is designed to carry 340 pounds (150 kg) alongside a soldier at 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h), traversing rough terrain at inclines up to 35 degrees.[5]
LittleDog is a small quadruped robot developed for DARPA by Boston Dynamics for research. Unlike BigDog which is run by Boston Dynamics, LittleDog is intended as a testbed for other institutions. Boston Dynamics maintains the robots for DARPA as a standard platform.[6][7]
RiSE is a robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences. RiSE uses feet with micro-claws to climb on textured surfaces. RiSE changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and its tail helps RiSE balance on steep ascents. RiSE is 0.25 m long, weighs 2 kg, and travels 0.3 m/s.
Each of RiSE's six legs is powered by a pair of electric motors. An onboard computer controls leg motion, manages communications, and services a variety of sensors, including joint position sensors, leg strain sensors and foot contact sensors.
Boston Dynamics developed RiSE in conjunction with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Lewis and Clark College. RiSE was funded by DARPA.
PETMAN is a bipedal device constructed for testing chemical protection suits. It is able to sweat. It is the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person. Much of its technology is derived from BigDog.[8]
Militarized version of BigDog.