A gyroscope tells the robot how much it is leaning, and lasers at each ankle measure the distance to the ground to help calculate how a step should be taken. Photo by Jan Stallerīeyond those commands, Dino carries everything aboard needed to control itself- power from a bank of 55 sealed lead-acid batteries, three electric motors to move each leg, a Pentium 700 megahertz processor for each leg, and a central computer that receives commands, loads appropriate software from the onboard memory, and coordinates each leg's response. Dino's knees simply transfer power from the robot's hips, keeping the legs light and their inertia low. Many robots have motors at each joint, especially at the knees. To one side of the robot sits a bank of computers where they created much of Dino's software and one console that wirelessly sends the robot simple commands like "walk backward." They went to work in a walled-off area of a large warehouse near the airport in Burbank. His team of engineers and scientists was recruited from universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Los Angeles. "I always wanted to build a robot dinosaur," says Hillis, who, as a Disney Fellow, ran the Dino project from 1998 until 2000, when he cofounded Applied Minds, Inc. Photo by Jan Stallerīirthed by Walt Disney Imagineering Research and Development, Dino was dreamed up by Danny Hillis, the man who invented massively parallel supercomputers in the 1980s. Then imagine it roaming freely on its own- the world's first truly autonomous robot. To understand what Dino's inventors are attempting, imagine this behemoth covered with a shell that makes it look like a dinosaur. No one has yet been able to achieve this feat, even with small, wheeled robots. A machine that knows where it is, can make its own decisions, and can move around as easily as a living animal has long been the Holy Grail of roboticists. If challenging problems are solved, it could be let loose in theme parks to roam on its own. It contains its own power and moves autonomously after receiving basic instructions like "move forward." Ultimately, a version of Dino may be covered with a skin to make it look more like a triceratops. It is the largest robot ever built that has legs and doesn't have a human inside. Mezzatesta is no big-game hunter he's an engineer, and his beast is a robot dubbed Dino. Before it is sent back to its box, some brave observers amble over for a better look. Swiveling left and right as much as 7 degrees, it keeps its feet in place, making large undulations and 15-inch-deep knee bends. The beast then takes a few steps backward, turns slightly, and begins to dance. "At this point in a previous demonstration, one woman got up and ran," says Mezzatesta. Nearing a small group of people, it leans toward them, then sways from side to side as if trying to decide whether to charge them, eat them, or ignore them. With deliberate but surprisingly lithe steps, it strides across the floor, shifting its weight with the grace of a cat as it lifts each foot in turn. The creature seems to hesitate for a moment, then moves forward. With the click of a mouse, the front of the crate crashes to the floor, revealing an enormous metal monster 13 feet tall, 18 feet long, and weighing 11,000 pounds- the basic statistics of a loaded delivery truck. Like a turn-of-the-century hunter returning from safari, Frank Mezzatesta stands next to a huge wooden crate he gleefully says contains something wild, a beast never before known to man.
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