The Robotics Institute

RI | Seminar | November 3, 2006

Robotics Institute Seminar, November 3, 2006
Time and Place | Seminar Abstract | Speaker Biography | Speaker Appointments


BigDog - a dynamic quadruped robot

Martin Buehler

Director of Robotics

Boston Dynamics

 

Time and Place

Mauldin Auditorium (NSH 1305)
Refreshments 3:15 pm
Talk 3:30 pm

Abstract

 

This seminar will describe several ongoing legged robot projects at Boston Dynamics. The focus will be on BigDog, a quadruped robot that can walk, run, balance, climb, carry loads, resist kicks and negotiate rough terrain with new levels of dynamic mobility, robustness, and performance. In the process we'll encounter interesting issues related to the system design, performance metrics, energy efficiency, and the experimental evaluation of such systems.

 

Speaker Biography

 

Martin Buehler is Director of Robotics at Boston Dynamics, where he leads the company’s robotics activities since 2003. He received the M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Yale University in 1985 and 1990. His doctoral work focused on the design, control and analysis of juggling robots and the analysis of a hopping robot. After a Postdoc at MIT's Leglab, he joined McGill University in 1991 as an NSERC Junior Industrial Research Chair and a Scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He founded and headed the Ambulatory Robotics Lab, which produced one, four and six legged robots, including the ARL Monopods I and II, Scout I and II, CARL, PAW, RHex, RiSE, and AQUA RHex. In 2003 he received McGill's William Dawson Scholar Award. Buehler served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation from 1998 - 2003, and is currently on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Robotics Research and the Journal of Field Robotics. He has supervised over 30 graduate students at McGill and has published over 100 papers on legged robot design and control, dynamic manipulation and motor control.

 

Speaker Appointments

 

For appointments, please contact Sanae Minick (sminick@cs.cmu.edu)


The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.