[HN Gopher] Extreme Parkour with Legged Robots
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Extreme Parkour with Legged Robots
Author : beefman
Score : 104 points
Date : 2023-10-09 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (extreme-parkour.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (extreme-parkour.github.io)
| nmca wrote:
| Whilst a lovely achievement, this title definitely overstates
| current robot abilities. Here is some human parkour for contrast:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHqAVaQqQWQ&t=106s
| Animats wrote:
| " _A single neural net policy operating directly from a camera
| image, trained in simulation with large scale RL, can overcome
| imprecise sensing and actuation to output highly precise control
| behavior end-to-end._ "
|
| So that's what it takes. That's so much simpler than the way
| Boston Dynamics does it, working out all the dynamics in
| simulation first. It's amazing to see this done from vision to
| actuators in one net. It's now much less of a mystery how animals
| managed to evolve the ability to do that.
|
| (I had a go at this problem years ago. I was trying to work out
| the dynamics from first principles, knowing it would be somewhat
| off. Then use some self-tuning (a predecessor to machine
| learning) to fine-tune the thing. Got as far as running up and
| downhill in 2D in the early 1990s. About one hour of compute for
| one second of motion.)
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This gives me Black Mirror-fueled nightmares... not least because
| those videos suggest that a Black Mirror scenario may not be that
| far off and what probably saves us for now is battery capacity.
| stavros wrote:
| What's the Black Mirror scenario?
| hanniabu wrote:
| General dystopian outcomes. After world powers harness
| robotic armies, revolts will no longer be possible and
| citizens will be permanently enslaved and must succumb to
| whatever oppressions are put on them.
| stavros wrote:
| Why is _walking_ the salient technology that will enable
| this? Why not wheels, or treads, or flying?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Psychologically because it's life-like (uncanny valley).
|
| Practically, because legs are superior to wheels when it
| comes to pursue a human target. It may be superior to
| flying as well indoor, to open doors, etc. And then there
| is the energy expenditure and additional mass constraint
| when airborne.
|
| Research on legged robots is not just for 'fun', it's
| because they are better at going through obstacles and
| rough terrain than wheeled vehicles.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Part of it is because we already have flying/wheeling
| drones. Walking is just the last step of all terrain
| capabilities.
|
| Flying can get you almost anywhere, but not quite. It is
| both very loud and has issues in enclosed spaces.
|
| Wheels/tracks are very efficient at moving mass, but have
| issues crossing some materials such as exploded building
| internals like you would find in a war zone.
|
| Walking/climbing is the last bit to get you inside
| enclosed 'human' spaces such as buildings and tunnels.
|
| The war occurring now in Gaza would be an example area of
| what future battle would look like.... A target building
| it hit by a bomb and mostly destroyed. Smaller automated
| drones quickly fly over the area and assess visible
| targets and threats for follow up artillery. Multiple
| mobilized traced/wheeled heavily armored drones would
| address any residual ground level threats. Upon reaching
| the target building the larger drone vehicles would
| release multiple smaller 'walking/crawling' style drones
| to ascend the rubble, either addressing any remaining
| targets themselves, or reporting back to a command
| station for some other group to make a decision on what
| to do next. The final goal of these walking units is to
| probe deep into the rubble to ascertain if any tunnels
| survived the initial bombing, and if so to begin mapping
| any threats in said tunnels.
| hanniabu wrote:
| It's not necessarily walking, just the improvement in
| mobility which is one precursor to self-sufficient
| policing
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Oh, right. There is a Black Mirror episode in which dog-like
| AI robots are hunting down humans [1]
|
| If you watch it then those research legged robots will look
| rather more sinister... or maybe it's just me. That episode
| really stuck with me.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalhead_(Black_Mirror)
| stavros wrote:
| They already do, really, but this is just a method of
| locomotion. If they want to hunt, they can hunt even if
| they're drones, or have wheels.
| autoexec wrote:
| "More Black Mirror than Mirror's Edge" was my takeaway too. In
| terms of Parkour this is slow and awkward, but it's like
| watching a baby taking their first steps towards murder. The
| most important hurdle for many soldiers is the one these
| machines never needed the help of AI to get over. Even after
| dehumanizing the enemy many soldiers are "non-firers" and won't
| shoot another person even if their own life is in danger, while
| those who kill children and civilians are often haunted by that
| act.
|
| These robots won't have any problems pulling the trigger at
| anyone or anything. They won't hesitate or refuse an order the
| way Stanislav Petrov did. They won't be trained to have empathy
| or respect for life. Humanity is the final check against the
| worst atrocities war demands from the people we send out to
| kill each other, and devices like these solve that "problem" by
| dehumanizing the soldier.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Shared this few days ago but didn't get any traction then
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37690384
| chanind wrote:
| The robot needs a speaker so it can yell "Parkour!" during each
| jump
| riku_iki wrote:
| I am always wondering, why they build such complicated biology
| inspired robots, while they can build something with wheels and
| simple levels which allows robot to jump over obstacles and turn
| upside down if it landed on the back.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| Its my assumption that biology inspired robots would adapt
| better to a biological world. It might also be easier to solve
| problems by copying those who have already figured out a
| solution.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Nature can't really make a nice wheel and free wheeling hub
| though. Blood vessels would get ripped off, cartilage etc.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| My limited understanding is that wheels really don't work for
| all terrain scenarios. For example, craggy mountains in
| Afghanistan. (Much of this research is funded directly and
| indirectly by the US DoD)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| there ought to be _plenty_ of money in this for delivering
| explosive payloads...
|
| (Edit: although come to think of it, in the animal world, jump
| height is much more constrained by 9,81 m/s2 than by body size)
| antognini wrote:
| Physics constrains jump height to be about a few meters
| regardless of size. The basic problem is that the total energy
| required scales with mass, but the total energy available also
| scales with mass. The two end up cancelling out and you get a
| maximum jump height that is independent of size.
|
| What really matters is the energy density of your storage
| medium, which is the same to an order of magnitude for any
| system based on chemical energy. So both a flea and an elephant
| (along with battery-powered robots) can jump about a meter or
| two in height.
| Torkel wrote:
| With special designs you can build up energy over time and
| then release it all at once, to reach sporadic super jumps.
| Example:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHXwTa5-DA
|
| (But for all but extreme designs I fully agree with you)
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Artillery exists.
|
| Delivering explosive payloads is a solved problem. Detecting
| humans is a solved problem. The hard part is reliably
| distinguishing enemy solders from friendly soldiers or
| civilians.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Artillery is surprisingly inefficient.
|
| It takes about 15 rounds of 155mm artillery per battlefield
| casualty. Each shot costs about $5k.
|
| Robots like this might cost the same as a single artillery
| shot but have the ability to get multiple kills each.
|
| It's a cold arithmetic, but I guarantee you someone at DARPA
| is thinking and planning the future of warfare in these
| terms.
| abraae wrote:
| It's possible to know where the humans are but be unable to
| destroy them with commonly available artillery payloads due
| to them being well dug in with overhead protection.
|
| These could swarm in the back door.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| I don't know, loitering munitions are pretty much bringing a
| renaissance to the field of blowing people up.
| bravura wrote:
| I was staying in Whitechapel, London recently. There are many
| religious folks there who are horrified by dogs, don't want dogs
| to touch them, and shun dogs and make a huge berth for them on
| the street and inside, like in buses.
|
| I was on dog walk duty and always held the lead close, but I knew
| they were worried I wasn't so conscientious and would let my dog
| friend run amuk on their garments.
|
| So I was trying to imagine an example of a creature that would
| horrify me similarly. Like perhaps if people had giant BEETLES as
| pets, and thought it was all grand, and I was like "what the FUCK
| are you on, my friend?", and I was pretty happy with that.
|
| But I think a closer cut to how disconnected this is from what
| seems appropriate, and normal, and reassuring, would be these
| robots. Clearly, some people don't really understand how
| horrifying this is, particularly with elevator music as the
| background. And if you want to know how upsetting the elevator
| music is as a background to set tone, I strongly urge you NOT NOT
| NOT to google "crab club" on youtube.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Did anyone else find the stair handstand to look like cheating?
| Extremely neat to see this stuff.
| scrpl wrote:
| Those movements are extremely animal-like, to the point of being
| unsettling (despite that I want a robot like that for myself)
| nightpool wrote:
| As a reminder: CMU and its robotics program is intimately
| associated with the US Department of Defense, and although there
| are certainly civilian applications for this technology, one of
| the most likely short-term applications is improving legged
| drones for battlefield deployment (often, it should be said, in
| humanitarian roles, including search and rescue, or support
| roles, such as ammo, food, and water resupply, but deployment of
| armed legged drones is also an active area of research).
|
| Here's a military news article covering the same umbrella grant
| program this research was funded under:
| https://www.c4isrnet.com/2022/06/23/darpa-adding-common-sens...
| asadm wrote:
| Which is great?
| gumby wrote:
| > CMU and its robotics program is intimately associated with
| the US Department of Defense
|
| Is this not the case with _all_ the major R1 institutions?
|
| Walt Rostow may no longer be deciding on troop levels from his
| office in the MIT Economics department (that cause MIT to
| "divest" its overtly military work into figleaf organizations)
| but still, after that, ARPA (later DARPA) poured hundreds of
| millions into the institution.
|
| They basically paid for my education there and I am not a US
| citizen and never worked on anything military-related, either
| while in school or since.
| nightpool wrote:
| I can't really speak for many other institutions. I know
| plenty of robotics labs that are doing completely civilian
| work under NSF grants, grants from corporations, some
| civilian manufacturing and automation work through the
| national labs, etc. And even among those institutions working
| on DARPA-funded projects, not every institution has NREC
| right down the street working on autonomy systems for ground
| combat vehicles:
| https://www.nrec.ri.cmu.edu/solutions/defense/other-
| projects.... The research done by students at CMU directly
| makes these types of weapons platforms possible, and vice
| versa.
|
| It's certainly true that many, many universities are deeply
| embedded with the DoD, defense contractors, and other weapons
| manufacturer ecosystems. Certainly CMU isn't exceptional
| here. But I think it's very important to keep in mind the
| reality of these programs when they come up in the news, like
| this article, which is why I left the link to how "the other
| side" sees these types of research programs.
| beambot wrote:
| Ironic comment given the implied nationalities of the coauthors
| (Xuxin Cheng, Kexin Shi, Ananye Agarwal, and Deepak Pathak) and
| the chosen robot form factor (Unitree)
| nightpool wrote:
| Is it? I think it's important to understand that this type of
| robotics research requires serious ethical considerations no
| matter where it happens or who works on it--this work
| specifically was funded by the US military, but it applies
| just as equally to weaponization projects happening within
| China.
| beambot wrote:
| Does the Chinese military sponsor education for US Citizens
| on military-adjacent projects in China? Why (not)?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I assume some combination of: they don't have the same
| incentives to try and draw in international talent as the
| multicultural US does, and US k-12 schools don't produce
| students that would do well on their admissions tests or
| whatever. Also we have pretty good engineering schools
| here in the US, so I don't see why anyone would take them
| up on that offer if they decided to make it.
| fuelfive wrote:
| Glad to see our universities making progress in this important
| area of national security.
| roenxi wrote:
| This tech is the stuff of nightmares. People are going to see
| this unfeeling little chitinous bug-dog-thing crawling in
| with them, then they die. And it is making it cheaper to kill
| people in exotic foreign lands.
|
| This is the tragedy of the commons. I'd rather see nobody
| making these advances, but if someone has to it'd better be
| people on my side. Can't stop progress :(
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Maybe there's a glimmer of hope that someday both sides can
| send their robots to destroy one another, instead of their
| sons and daughters? I agree that initially there's an
| advantage to richer nations, but it's not like a $30M jet
| fighter, there could be parity.
| [deleted]
| croes wrote:
| How does this improve national security?
| gumby wrote:
| They are vehicles that can navigate terrain a wheeled
| vehicle cannot. So they could do anything from operate as
| pack "animals" for infiltration teams to be armed drones
| that creep along the ground, harder to detect than a flying
| one.
| croes wrote:
| Once again, how does this improve national security?
|
| That's offense not defense. It worsens the national
| security of your opponent but doesn't strengthen your
| own.
| XorNot wrote:
| What do you think defense actually is in the current
| technological era?
|
| You don't defend territory with static defense's or force
| fields or walls.
| gumby wrote:
| That seems like a rather limited view of the word
| "defense", more appropriate to football or hockey than
| warfare. Even for that you could have these drones
| patrolling the territory/shooting intruders.
|
| But the word "defense" is much wider than that. Is the US
| supplying offensive weapons to Ukraine contributing to
| the national defense? Even if you feel the US should not
| be doing that, I hoe you can see the logic of people who
| do frame it that way.
|
| And Ukraine's in a defensive war against an invader, and
| for that they have to go on the offense.
|
| (Of course the US renaming the Department of War to
| Department of Defense in 1947 was 100% propaganda, or to
| be more charitable, aspirational. There is no question
| that it has been used offensively).
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| What a naive statement. Do you really believe no other nation
| is capable of making such a thing? This doesn't improve our
| national security at all. Just ups the ante for robotic
| infantry, whatever the hell that ends up meaning. Like
| advancements in war technology has ever been a positive in
| the world.
| mshockwave wrote:
| not sure what you trying to get, but hundreds if not thousands
| of universities are working closely with DARPA, which is an DoD
| agency that sponsors mostly high-level and non-classified
| researches. Many of the researches have weak connections to
| actual military usages (there has to be _some_ connections, but
| many of them are pretty weak).
| o0banky0o wrote:
| It walks into your room, discovers you, and moves in to make the
| kill, but for some reason the gun trained at an odd angle. You
| see it take two shots that veer across to the corner of the room
| before it hilariously enters some self-correcting routine, seems
| to rediscover you, and finally blows your head off.
|
| You get a chuckle before you die
| p1esk wrote:
| You better have your own robots protecting you.
| qup wrote:
| Or become undetectable.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "It turns out that our kill-bots don't shoot at mimes for
| some reason?"
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| The only protection from a bad guy with a robot is a good guy
| with a time machine and a shotgun.
| p1esk wrote:
| Wait, who was the bad guy with a robot? I thought there
| were only bad robots.
| superb_dev wrote:
| Why doesn't it use existing momentum to get over that gap or up
| on the ledge? It slows down before it makes the jump
| d--b wrote:
| This doesn't look like an extreme environment at all, yet the
| robot still has his legs sliding quite a bit on various
| obstacles, which surprised me since it can do complex stuff. They
| only show slow-motion on perfect moves, which is a bit
| disingenuous. I thought SOTA was better than this honestly.
| abraae wrote:
| I thought the opposite. Watching it scrabble to get its hind
| legs up on the ledge - exactly as a dog would do, with the
| benefit of millions of years of evolution behind it - was very
| impressive to me.
| throwaway67743 wrote:
| War of the Worlds (recent remake) is finally here!
| beefman wrote:
| Robot they're using is a Unitree A1:
| https://www.unitree.com/en/a1
| hammock wrote:
| Is it just me or was I unimpressed that it can't long jump
| further than 2x its body length?
| unblough wrote:
| Only thing missing in that video is some rando walking by on
| campus in the background yelling "when they come, I hope they
| come for you first!"
| alcover wrote:
| "The Hound half rose in its kennel and looked at him with green-
| blue neon light flickering in its suddenly activated eyebulbs. It
| growled again."
| gpderetta wrote:
| "THEY sent A SLAMHOUND on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted
| it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up
| with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling
| for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and
| pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized
| hexogene and flaked TNT. He didn't see it coming. The last he
| saw of India was the pink stucco facade of a place called the
| Khush-Oil Hotel."
| namero999 wrote:
| What about the handstand? Was it programmed to do so or was it an
| artifact of the neural net? I wonder if this relates to the fact
| that some dogs do in fact perform "handstand" (pawstand?) in
| seemingly random situations...
| [deleted]
| noelwelsh wrote:
| I'm sure this is impressive for an autonomous robot. However, as
| a fan of real parkour its kinda annoying to see some modest jumps
| and walking on a slope labelled "extreme parkour". What the robot
| demonstrates I'd expect any healthy 10 year old to be able to
| equal.
| foderking wrote:
| its actually hard for robots to compete with 10 year olds
| s3krit wrote:
| The metrics they're using (2x its height for climbing a wall,
| 2x its length for crossing a gap) are weird and don't really
| relate to the same achievements for a traceur. 2x its height is
| really more like slightly over 1x its usable body for that
| maneuver (0.4m length, 0.51cm height of the climb). I agree,
| not extreme but still pretty impressive for a robot. We're not
| going to see them doing cat leaps any time soon ;)
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