What I think is the most incredible about this robot is the patent. Call me a bit too business savey for my own good, but I randomly came across what they patented:
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Originally Posted by US Patent Office, Patent #6,822,421
1. A bipedal robot having an electric energy storage device for operating the robot, wherein:
said electric energy storage device is mounted on an upper body of the robot such that the electric energy storage device has a center-of-gravity point present at a position upward of a center-of-gravity point of the robot from which said electric energy storage device is removed and which is in an upstanding state.
2. A bipedal robot having an electric energy storage device for operating the robot and arms extending from shoulders on an upper body of the robot, wherein:
said electric energy storage device is mounted on the upper body of the robot such that the electric energy storage device has a center-of-gravity point present at a position rearward, in a forward and rearward direction of the robot, of a center-of-gravity point of the robot from which said electric energy storage device removed and which is in an upstanding state, and the shoulders on the upper body of the robot, to which said arms are coupled, are disposed in a position forward, in the forward and rearward direction of the robot, of the center-of-gravity point of the robot from which said electric energy storage device is removed and which is in the upstanding state.
(6 other claims snipped since I don't want to take 5 pages)
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For those of you that dislike jargon....
They have the patent on bipedal robots with batteries above the center of gravity.
That's an incredibly broad claim!
As the patent mentions:
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It is customary to control the attitude stabilization of a bipedal robot based on an inverted pendulum-type dynamic model as disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 5-337849 or U.S. Pat. No. 5,459,659 by the present applicant. The attitude stabilization is controlled by controlling a torque around ankles of the robot with the behavioral characteristics of perturbation of the position of the upper body of the robot being simulated by the behavioral characteristics of an inverted pendulum. A robot under such attitude stabilization control can achieve better robot attitude stability if the center of gravity of the overall robot is in a higher position than it is in a lower position (a vertical position closer to the floor that is contacted by the feet of the robot).
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Ten thousand kinds of awesome!
Matt