SHAFT Unveils Awesome New Bipedal Robot at Japan Conference
8. 4. 2016 | IEEE Spectrum | spectrum.ieee.org
Right now, the New Economic Summit (NEST) 2016 Conference is going on in Tokyo, Japan. One of the keynote speakers is Andy Rubin. Rubin was in charge of Google’s robotics program in 2013, when the company (now Alphabet) acquired a fistful of some of the most capable and interesting robotics companies in the world.
One of those companies was SCHAFT, which originated at the JSK Robotics Laboratory at the University of Tokyo and is best known for winning the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials by an absurd amount. We haven’t heard anything at all from SCHAFT over the past three years, and as far as we know, they’re still part of Google. Somehow, Rubin convinced them to show up to his NEST keynote, and they brought a brand new bipedal robot.
SCHAFT’s new robot (which hasn’t been named yet) “is designed to be a low-cost, low-power, compact device to help society.” It can lift 60kg, travel over uneven terrain, and even tackle stairs, which are notoriously difficult for robots.
Read more at IEEE Spectrum
Image Credit: Rakuten
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