Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have made a blind robot that moves by feeling, without the need for sensors and cameras.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Cheetah 3 moves in a way the engineers describe as "blind locomotion", meaning it "feels" its path through an environment ? a process the team likens to a person making their way across a pitch-black room.
The team chose to limit the robot's capacity to perceive its surroundings via cameras and external sensors ? the usual seeing tools of an artificial intelligence ? to enhance its navigation abilities.
"Vision can be noisy, slightly inaccurate, and sometimes not available, and if you rely too much on vision, your robot has to be very accurate in position and eventually will be slow," said Sangbae Kim, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT who designed the robot. "We want the robot to rely more on tactile information. That way, it can handle unexpected obstacles while moving fast."
Cheetah 3 can navigate without prior information
Video of the Cheetah 3 ? whose quadrupedal movement is similar to the internet-favourite Boston Dynamics robot ? shows it climbing up a staircase with no camera or prior information about the terrain.
It's also shown walking outdoors on rough terrain, running on a treadmill, jumping, spinning while moving, and recovering its footing after being pushed or yanked around.
The Cheetah 3 navigates without...