[SGVLUG] Fw: [HP3000-L] Biomechanical evolution of vertebrate evolution

[Tom Emerson]

heh heh heh -- finally, my main three mailing lists can come together on the same not-entirely-on-topic post :)

This is REALLY COOL

 -- for the linux folks, you may recall the talk we had with Virgil Griffith regarding "artificial life" and Polyworld, well, this is "real" world...

 -- for the Rocket folks -- the ultimate recovery "vehicle"

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Wirt Atmar <atmar at AICS-RESEARCH.COM>
To: HP3000-L at RAVEN.UTC.EDU
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:58:06 PM
Subject: [HP3000-L] Biomechanical evolution of vertebrate evolution

I posted the following a few minutes ago to a vertebrate paleontology list that 
I participate in, and I thought that the list might enjoy the video that I 
mention in the posting as well.

Wirt Atmar

========================================== 

In a burst of youthful enthusiasm 32 years ago, when I founded AICS 
Research, the "AICS" stood for "Artificially Intelligent Cybernetic Systems." We 
long ago tired of explaining what that phrase meant so we condensed the 
name to simply AICS. Over time, we moved away from robotics and became 
primarily a software supplier to Hewlett-Packard and their customers, but the 
original intention was to design and build self-learning, biologically-inspired 
autonomous mechanisms.

With that introduction, let me show you this video and simultaneously express 
my admiration for what the people at Boston Dynamics have been able to 
accomplish. This 3 minute video clip was released just a few days ago:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww

The clip is of "BigDog." It is at once eminently reminiscent of naturally evolved 
locomotion and at the same time enormously unsettling in its alienness.

BigDog has a gasoline engine to power the hydraulic system acuators that act 
as its musculature. Proprioception is accomplished by angle and pressure 
sensors located at every joint and foot pad, and the CNS is encephalized in a 
central CPU, which also processes visual and equilibrium inputs as well.

The end result is quite impressive.

Like most work of this kind, it is funded by the US military, in this case, the 
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), but DARPA is lot more 
willing to fund flights of fancy than any of the civilian research granting 
agencies and at much higher dollar amounts, and a lot of good work does 
eventually come out their efforts. The internet was one of their funded 
projects.

Wirt Atmar

===========================================

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *