Science AMA Series: I’m Jessy Grizzle, the inaugural Director of Robotics at the University of Michigan. My group produces some of the world’s most advanced algorithms that allow bipedal robots to walk over uneven terrain. AMA!

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Hi reddit!

My group, the Dynamic Legged Locomotion Laboratory, is best known for two walking robots: MABEL and MARLO. Two of my outstanding graduate students, Xingye “Dennis” Da and Ross Hartley, will be helping me out with questions about MARLO today. Here’s our lab’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/DynamicLegLocomotion

MARLO, our current robot, is capable of walking without support in any direction (3D walking). We take it over some of the most challenging terrain we can find. It falls, it breaks; we order new parts, improve our algorithms, and go out again. We’ve managed to walk down steep hills, through woodland, and most recently, we’ve seen early success on the Wave Field - a field covered with grassy mounds that are about three feet high. Here’s a playlist of MARLO experiments: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFe0SMV3hBCDPEEhG0iLEvXVpfQsq_NdS

MABEL, MARLO’s predecessor, was capable of 2D walking (in circles, attached to a boom). It could recover from trips and walk up and down obstacles in its way. MABEL is most famous for running at a pace equivalent to a 9-minute mile. We took what we learned in 2D walking with MABEL and applied it to MARLO. Here’s a playlist of MABEL experiments. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFe0SMV3hBCDseftwp7X0Wmi2halvfr3H

MABEL and MARLO are underactuated robots - they don’t have control over every joint. For instance, MARLO’s feet swing freely from its ankles. This makes our algorithms applicable to more robots, including those that have actuated ankles.

They can also provide a basis for robotic prosthetics. One of our collaborators, Bobby Gregg at the University of Texas, Dallas, develops prosthetic legs for humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl1IXs0j4Ww

But robotics is much more than walking robots. My colleagues at Michigan work on projects such as drones that communicate to avoid collisions, autonomous underwater robots, robots that help people recover from injuries and surgeries, the next generation of robots in factories and, of course, driverless cars. If there is enough interest in the Reddit community, we may be able to recruit some of these experts for future AMAs! More about the Robotics Institute here: http://ift.tt/1vOoqdm

We will be back at 1 pm ET to answer your questions, ask us anything!

">Science AMA Series: I’m Jessy Grizzle, the inaugural Director of Robotics at the University of Michigan. My group produces some of the world’s most advanced algorithms that allow bipedal robots to walk over uneven terrain. AMA!