Just when I stopped having nightmares about BigDog, the freaky quadruped robot that will become a soldier’s best friend one day. Boston Dynamics’ founder Marc Raibert just sent me this music video showing the best moments of its evolution. Great.
Raibert was the MIT professor who founded the MIT Leg Lab and then Boston Dynamics in the early ’90s. He and his team developed BigDog for the US military, a biological-like hopping quadruped that can climb through rubble, snow, ice, dirt and jump pover obstacles like a demonic goat from hell. When it gets fully developed, BigDog will carry equipment for US infantry troops.
This video shows the evolution of this amazing machine. No matter how many times I see it in action, even it failures, it never ceases to amaze me. I’m just sad they didn’t include footage of BigDog’s special-needs cousin, though. [Thanks Marc!]