If a terrain gets messy, legs are the way to go. Dr Gabriel Lopes works on a robot that gallops like a horse or crawls like a cockroach.
It runs, tumbles and regains its equilibrium. Whether the terrain is sandy, grassland, strewn with rocks or, as is the case in the laboratory of the Delft Center for Systems and Control, scattered with obstacles like pipes, Dr Gabriel Lopes’ legged robot goes on. “The biggest invention of mankind may have been the wheel,” says the robotics researcher. “Yet if something goes wrong and the ground is full of obstacles, then you need to go back to nature and see how animals use legs. For rescue operations you need legs.”
About ten years ago Lopes, in collaboration with four other North American universities, started working on a six-legged robot inspired by a cockroach at the University of Michigan. The robot was quite successful, as Lopes demonstrates by showing videos in which the robot mountain climbs (and tumbles off big rocks) and runs over grids full of big holes. “I spent lots of time during my PhD research repairing the robot,” Lopes laughs.
At TU Delft, where Lopes has worked for two years and is now an assistant professor, the researcher wants to take the robot a step further. “We’ve worked on the mathematics to control the synchronization of the legs. Now that we understand the mathematics, we can use them to change the gaits – the way the robot moves its limbs,” he says, while giving a command to the robot with his iPad. Suddenly the robot starts running instead of walking.
Ultimately Lopes’ robot must be able to switch gaits autonomously. He’s working on an algorithm that allows the robot to measure the power it exerts to maintain a certain speed on a certain terrain with a certain gait. “The robot will try different parameters and decide which is best – just like a horse does to choose the most energetically efficient type of locomotion. Did you know a horse knows more then ten different gaits like, walk, trot and gallop?”
The idea is also to use the robot, which is programmed with a programme familiar to many students – Matlab – for educational purposes. In Michigan this was a great success, with students practicing their programming skills by holding competitions in which the robot had to dance.
Hij klikte op emails die zeer geloofwaardig leken en liet zien wat er, onzichtbaar voor de gebruiker, mogelijk was voor een hacker. De zaal begon ongemakkelijk op de stoelen te schuiven. Vervolgens kwam Michel van Eeten, hoogleraar bestuurskunde bij de faculteit Techniek, Bestuur en Management, met duizelingwekkende getallen. Minstens honderdvijftig miljoen computers over de hele wereld zijn gehackt. Van die privécomputers, die van u en van mij zouden kunnen zijn, wordt bijvoorbeeld spam verstuurd.
U leest het goed: uw computer kan gebruikt worden, onzichtbaar voor u, om spam te versturen. Dan merkt u bijvoorbeeld dat de computer wat trager is dan normaal. De zaal begon zich nu ook hoorbaar te roeren, helemaal toen Van Eeten zei dat die firewalls misschien 30 tot 40 procent van de aanvallen kunnen afweren. Maar het helpt niet echt, zo’n virusprogramma.
Wat zijn specifiek de gevaren bij internetbankieren? Hackers kunnen op slinkse wijze bedragen afschrijven. Van Eeten: “Terwijl u de acceptgiro van het energiebedrijf aan het intoetsen bent, kan de hacker het moment gebruiken om een groot bedrag van uw rekening af te schrijven. Deze afschrijving wordt niet vermeld in de reguliere staatjes, dat wordt gefilterd. U ziet er niets van. Tot u opeens merkt dat drieduizend euro is overgemaakt naar een rekening in de Bijlmer.” De Nederlandse Vereniging van Banken heeft tot nu toe geen inzicht willen geven in de cijfers over de omvang van internetfraude. Dit najaar komen ze met cijfers.
Hoewel er wel eens wat gebeurt, vindt Van Eeten internetbankieren relatief veilig. Bij creditcards bijvoorbeeld is het fraudebedrag vijf cent op iedere honderd euro. Dat noemt hij een aanvaardbaar risico.
Het is hem een doorn in het oog dat de banken de geleden schade niet willen vergoeden. Creditcardmaatschappijen doen dat wel. “Sommige mensen zijn door fraude met internetbankieren al hun spaargeld van bijvoorbeeld 20 duizend euro kwijtgeraakt. Banken moeten dat vergoeden.” In Amerika is dat al sinds 1979 zo geregeld. Waarom kan dat dan niet in Nederland?
Michael Samson van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Banken verweerde zich door te zeggen dat banken in de praktijk vrijwel altijd de schade vergoeden, maar dat ze dit recht niet garanderen. Dankzij Elsevierjournalist Simon Rozendaal brandde dit technologiedebat minstens zo hevig als het Carré-debat. Een mooie middag.
De volgende Elsevier-technologiedebatten zijn op: 27 september: ‘De elektrische auto’ met Cees de Bont; 25 oktober: ‘De magie van nano’ met Cees Dekker en 29 november: ‘Bestrijding van terrorisme’ met Ben Ale.
It runs, tumbles and regains its equilibrium. Whether the terrain is sandy, grassland, strewn with rocks or, as is the case in the laboratory of the Delft Center for Systems and Control, scattered with obstacles like pipes, Dr Gabriel Lopes’ legged robot goes on. “The biggest invention of mankind may have been the wheel,” says the robotics researcher. “Yet if something goes wrong and the ground is full of obstacles, then you need to go back to nature and see how animals use legs. For rescue operations you need legs.”
About ten years ago Lopes, in collaboration with four other North American universities, started working on a six-legged robot inspired by a cockroach at the University of Michigan. The robot was quite successful, as Lopes demonstrates by showing videos in which the robot mountain climbs (and tumbles off big rocks) and runs over grids full of big holes. “I spent lots of time during my PhD research repairing the robot,” Lopes laughs.
At TU Delft, where Lopes has worked for two years and is now an assistant professor, the researcher wants to take the robot a step further. “We’ve worked on the mathematics to control the synchronization of the legs. Now that we understand the mathematics, we can use them to change the gaits – the way the robot moves its limbs,” he says, while giving a command to the robot with his iPad. Suddenly the robot starts running instead of walking.
Ultimately Lopes’ robot must be able to switch gaits autonomously. He’s working on an algorithm that allows the robot to measure the power it exerts to maintain a certain speed on a certain terrain with a certain gait. “The robot will try different parameters and decide which is best – just like a horse does to choose the most energetically efficient type of locomotion. Did you know a horse knows more then ten different gaits like, walk, trot and gallop?”
The idea is also to use the robot, which is programmed with a programme familiar to many students – Matlab – for educational purposes. In Michigan this was a great success, with students practicing their programming skills by holding competitions in which the robot had to dance.
Video of the walking robot:
http://bit.ly/hj7c4j
Video of the dancing robot:
http://bit.ly/ewLkIP
Do you have a question or comment about this article?
delta@tudelft.nl
Comments are closed.