INNOVATION
R
The Guardian GT robot can use off-the-shelf power
tools to perform mission-specific functions like
grinding and finishing, plasma cutting and joining,
and can also turn valves, push buttons, and place
pipes for connection.
But this was not the first venture into
human-piloted robots. More than a
decade ago, Canadian mechanical
engineer Jonathan Tippett, along with
fellow Vancouver engineers, built the
Mondo Spider, a mechanical walking
spider propelled by hydraulic pumps
and motors, that was later switched to
electrical energy, enabling it to operate
relatively silently, charge from solar power,
and perform indoors with no emissions.
“If you can convert a 750kg walking
spider from gas to electric, surely you can
convert anything,” said Tippett in 2013.
His next project? A human-powered
robot athlete.
Prosthesis — a 3 600kg, 4.5m tall
exo-bionic platform that amplifies the
pilot’s motions — is the flagship machine
in a new ‘sport’: mech racing. Built from
chromoly steel, Prosthesis can potentially
run at over 30km/h, jump as high as 3m,
and operate for two hours on a single
charge. While Tippett’s aim is to kick-start
mech racing as a sport, according to Ars
Technica, his point is at least somewhat
philosophical.
“Prosthesis may be framed as a high-
tech machine, but it’s [a 3 600kg] metaphor
on how tech has enabled us to do what we
want to do and the important role humans
still play in robotics,” he told the publication.
And this is why he opted to build a mech
with a man-machine interface rather than a
remote-operated robot.
While both of these examples were
built for ‘sport’, with a little modification
and a lot of refinement, the practical
applications are significant. Rather than
requiring a robot with the correct software
and functionality to carry out a specific
emote-controlled and autonomous
robots are not the only area with
potential for construction and mining
machinery. There are also ‘mechs’, or
human-piloted robots. Anyone who has
watched the movie Pacific Rim (or Iron
Man, or any one of thousands of animated
shows) is familiar with the idea. Take a
giant robot and place the person controlling
it inside. Much like the iconic Caterpillar
P-5000 Powered Work Loader — or ‘far
future forklift’ — used by Sigourney Weaver
in Aliens. But these are not as far off as one
might think. In fact, real mechs are already
here, although nowhere near as advanced
as their fictional counterparts.
On 17 October 2017, the world’s first-ever
giant robot duel was broadcast, with Japan
taking on the USA. What made this so
interesting, giant robots aside, was that
rather than being remote controlled, these
robots were piloted from the inside. The
roots of this historic event can be traced
back to 2015, when American company
MegaBots completed construction of the
USA’s first giant piloted mech: the 4.5m
tall Mk. II MegaBot, which weighed in at
just under 4.5 tonnes and was capable of
hurling 1.36kg projectiles at speeds of over
200km/h.
Upon completion of the Mk. II,
MegaBots challenged the only other known
giant piloted robot in the world to a duel:
the 4-tonne KURATAS created by Japan’s
Suidobashi Heavy Industries. Group founder
and CEO Kogoro Kurata accepted. Although
less a real duel than a display match, the
‘fight’ gave both companies a chance to
show off what their creations could do. And
the possibilities as technology continues to
advance go far beyond sport.
MARCH 2018
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