Will Moon Robot Fly?
On Nov 3, 3:46*pm, Hop wrote:
A telerobot with two cameras giving stereo vision, a head that mimics
the motion of the users head, as well as arms and hands that mimics
the users hands could be useful. I would expect these to be put on
wheels though.
Wheels are great for relatively smooth terrain. Legs usually work
better when there are lots of rocks and holes.
Bipedal transportation needs a sense of balance.
I'd expect a legged lunar robot to be a tetrapod at least, or perhaps
something akin to a centaur. Two legs aren't enough to deal with
random ruggedness; it's too easy to step into a hole that you didn't
know was there before you committed your weight to that foot.
Maintaining balance is a problem that a user with a 3 second light lag
wouldn't be able to deal with.
That's what autonomous balance software is for. It's already being
used for "packbot" applications for which control lag is not an issue.
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