Dexterous All-Terrain Biped

The objective of the proposed project is to determine the feasibility and efficacy of using a two-legged, two-armed robot for inspection and EOD tasks. The project builds upon an agile two-legged platform currently under development for DARPA. The Tactical All-Terrain Biped (T/ATB) is intended to walk over arbitrary terrain using a real-time stereo vision system. The first prototype, a legs-only version, is undergoing initial testing. Follow-on versions will add two arms to enable crawling on steep terrain. The goal of the proposed Dexterous All-Terrain Biped (D/ATB) is to add high-degree-of-freedom hands, integrated locomotion and manipulation behaviors, and a unique operator interface to the ATB platform to achieve new levels of mobility, dexterity and adaptability in small military robots. Phase I involves designing the hands, developing one-hand and two-hand grasp behaviors, combining those behaviors with existing walk behaviors and testing the integrated system within a non-trivial simulation environment. Alternative power plants such as JP-8 fueled hybrid electric systems are explored as well. The Phase I Option includes building and testing a preliminary articulated hand and the development of a dual-mode manual/verbal operator interface for efficient task-based control. Construction of a full-scale prototype is planned for Phase II.