HECTOR, the insect-inspired walking robot

[Duke461]

Just thought I'd share this. HECTOR, which stands for Hexapod Cognitive Autonomously Operating Robot, is a 3.28 ft! robot made by engineers at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. It's an amazing accomplishment.
Part of the Gizmag.com's article on HECTOR is below (read it all here):


In each of the 18 joints of its six legs and the two joints linking the its three body segments, HECTOR uses a new type of bioinspired, self-contained, elastic joint drive that its developers say works as smoothly as muscles. Each of the drives is equipped with sensors, complete control electronics, its own processor and a sensorized elastic coupling that allows the 18 leg joints to be controlled using biologically inspired control algorithms. These give HECTOR the ability to react by yielding during collisions or interactions with people.

As well as its insect-like appearance, HECTOR also possesses a light, yet durable exoskeleton made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) which makes up only around 13 percent of the robot's body weight, but allows it to carry loads many times that – with a total weight of 12 kg (26.45 lb), the one-meter (3.28 ft) long robot can carry a 30 kg (66 lb) load with less than one millimeter (0.04 in) of deformation.