Cassie bipedal robot rides a Segway

Security is one of the practical applications for various types of robots. And it appears the Cassie bipedal robot has a future as a mall cop or security guard on wheels.

The Dynamic Legged Locomotion Lab at the University of Michigan recently had the Cassie bipedal robot ride a Segway. It’s part of the labs ongoing experiments that test the Cassie bipedal robot in extreme environments. The lab also recently had the Cassie bipedal robot walk through fire (watch video below).

In its latest video, the Cassie bipedal robot is riding a Segway in a grassy common area while its human handlers watch close by. Everyone’s having a grand ole time until the 2:22 mark when the humans got a little greedy. They increased the speed of the Segway and caused the Cassie bipedal robot to fall. You’ll notice the Segway reached its maximum speed and then started leaning back to slow down.

Here’s how the researchers describe what’s going on in the video:

“Cassie Blue is controlling the motion of the Segway by body lean, just as a human rider would do. To turn, she leans into the middle bar of the Segway with her “shin”.

“The feedback law being used is Cassie Blue’s normal standing controller. Yukai Gong, via the remote controller, commands Cassie Blue’s body lean. It would be much better if we modified the controller system so that we just sent desired speed and turn radius to the robot, and let feedback take care of the rest!

“Because we did not do that, we ran into a bit of trouble: the Segway has a built-in speed limiter. We’d be commanding Cassie Blue to go faster, faster, faster, by leaning further and further forward, and when the Segway would hit is speed limit, Cassie Blue would simply tip forward and fall of the Segway!”

The researchers said they could make the Cassie bipedal robot be able to turn the Segway. They’d have to “apply a connection between the robot’s legs and the central bar of the Segway.”

If you want to learn more about Cassie, join us next week at the Robotics Summit & Showcase (May 23-24) at the Westin Boston Waterfront. The Robotics Summit focuses on the technical issues involved with the design and development of commercial robotics and intelligent systems products and services.

Agility Robotics co-founder and CEO Damion Shelton is delivering the opening keynote called “Bipedal Locomotion and Autonomous Mobility.”

[Read: Meet cutting-edge robots at the Robotics Summit]

Shelton will describe the advantages of bipedal locomotion for autonomous mobility in unstructured, human populated environments. Possible use cases for bipedal robotics, as well as specific design, development and testing requirements for bipedal systems, will also be discussed.

The Robotics Summit will also feature keynotes from Boston Dynamics, including a live demo of SpotMini, DHL, GE, Jabil, and Harvard University. Register today, learn from the best minds in robotics, and help engineer the future of robotics.