If we talk about robotics, we have already seen cooked and raw ones. Robot from luggage, robots they paint, robots from the kitchen (sometimes robot kitchens!), robots of all shapes and colors. However, most of them can generally only move one way at a time. We have seen robots swimmers, robots on paws, robots on wheels, robots that crawl. Was it understood that this introduction served to get rid of some internal links on the site? Also read the "old" posts, they are still about the future :)
We have never seen, however, a robot capable of doing all these things together. At least before meeting LEONARDO. Leonardo is a bipedal robot capable of walking, flying and so on. Its design integrates both legs and wings. This hybrid ability makes him exceptionally agile and capable of performing complex movements.
A very versatile bipedal robot
The Caltech, where the study was carried out, says that Leonardo, for LEO friends, is like a flying insect. He can easily scurry, jump, even ride a skateboard. Sure, its design and sudden transitions from walking to flying make an impression. They can even frighten some observers. LEO doesn't care, and uses his multi-articulated legs (with the sturdy help of propeller thrusters) to gain a good degree of control over his balance.
The bipedal robot is just under 80 centimeters tall (two and a half feet), and is designed to be able to take off, sorry, "jump", even from uneven terrain, stairs or other obstacles. To use an analogy: it walks as if it were wearing high heels, but those heels are what keep this thing from falling upside down.
We were inspired by the birds' ability to fly and bump into telephone wires and power lines. We wanted to understand this mysterious behavior, so we designed and tested an origami robot that could fly and walk at the same time.
Soon Jo Chung, author of the study and Professor of Aerospace Engineering
Now we need stronger legs
Legs are important, especially for a biped. To increase LEO's leg strength, the Caltech team now plans to create a more rigid design that can better support the robot's weight. On uneven terrain, then, the objective is for LEO to be supported more by its legs than by its propellers, for obvious consumption reasons. How will consumption be optimized, by the way? For those, a control algorithm is being perfected that will help the bipedal robot decide when to walk, fly or jump to adapt to various scenarios with the least possible waste of energy.
