Doggone Strong

Quadrupedal robots, inspired by the agility and versatility of four-legged animals, have generated significant interest in the field of robotics. They have found niche applications in industries where agility and adaptability are prioritized over raw strength. Inspection and monitoring tasks in environments that are difficult for wheeled or tracked robots to navigate, such as uneven terrains, construction sites, or disaster-stricken areas, showcase the potential of these robots. Their ability to traverse challenging landscapes with stability and maneuverability makes them valuable for inspections of infrastructure, surveillance, or data collection in hazardous or remote locations.

But while their design and capabilities are fascinating, their practical applications in industry are currently limited, and several challenges impede their widespread adoption. One notable constraint is the relative lack of power in existing quadrupedal robots, which hinders their ability to undertake tasks that demand significant strength. This excludes quadrupedal robots from heavy lifting, assembly line tasks, transportation of substantial loads, and many other tasks that are vital in industry.

Advancements in robotics technology, including improvements in power and efficiency, may pave the way for expanded industrial applications of quadrupedal robots. That is the hope of engineers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, anyway. They have recently developed a beefy quadrupedal robot named Barry. The sturdy design and powerful actuators of this robot enable it to carry loads of up to 200 pounds. That is quite substantial when considering that the well-known four-legged robot named Spot, produced by Boston Dynamics, has a maximum payload of about 30 pounds.

Barry is a customized version of ETH Zurich’s previous robot named ANYmal. But where ANYmal relied on hydraulic systems for movement, Barry instead utilizes custom, high-efficiency electric actuators. This allows Barry to stay light and agile, weighing in at just over 100 pounds. This hardware configuration also enables the robot to remain fairly quiet during operation, which is important in many applications.

When it comes to motors, the team learned that bigger is better. By using overpowered motors, the robot was able to operate with greater levels of energy efficiency than it would be able to if performing the same task with less powerful motors. Thanks to this efficient design, Barry can walk for two hours carrying a payload, and travel distances in excess of six miles.

An onboard reinforcement learning-based controller was trained specifically to leverage the device’s unique hardware. This allows it to traverse a variety of terrain types while steering and maintaining its balance. There is little additional hardware for environmental sensing included in the build at this point, so the team still has some work ahead of them before Barry is ready to be deployed to the jobsite.

Speaking of getting to work, one of the lead researchers involved in this work envisions a future where Barry will be “carrying raw materials on construction sites to prevent injuries and increase productivity, carrying equipment in search and rescue operations to free up rescuers from excessive loads… The same technology could be used to design a walking wheelchair, and we actually got some requests for this specific use case. Once we started showing the robot with a big box on top, people realized a lot of things could be done.”

Aside from the potential for commercial applications, this robot looks like a lot of fun. Barry is more than capable of giving people a ride, which is demonstrated in the following video.