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[Project image] Ambler
This project is no longer active.

Head: William Red L. Whittaker
Contact: William Red L. Whittaker (red@ri.cmu.edu)

Mailing address:
Carnegie Mellon University
Robotics Institute
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Associated center: FRC

Jump to: Project Description | Personnel | Sub-projects | Publications

Project Description

The Amber's legged configuration overcomes three significant liabilities of precedent walkers: complexity of coordination control, resultant energy losses, and redundancy for continued function after loss of some motions. The Amber's actuator groups are orthogonal; the Ambler can thus level without propelling, can propel without leveling, and exhibits no power coupling between the two. This configuration enables a tractable control model and eliminates the energy loss of actuator conflict. In addition, the Ambler enables energy-efficient overlapping gaits unprecedented by animals and other robot walkers. The Ambler incorporates true functional redundancy it can lose up to two legs and still walk. Other critical issues in the project include perception and locomotion of rugged terrain, self-assessment, safeguarding, gait planning, control, and ultimate self-reliance.

Past members

Name Title Email Address
John Bares Research Professor/Director of NREC bares@cs.cmu.edu
Martial's personal homepage Martial Hebert Professor hebert@ri.cmu.edu
Takeo's personal homepage Takeo Kanade U.A. and Helen Whitaker University Prof., RI/CS tk@cs.cmu.edu
Eric's personal homepage Eric Krotkov Courtesy Adjunct Faculty (Adjunct) krotkov@cytometrics.com
James's personal homepage James Martin Operations Manager - REC jmartin@rec.ri.cmu.edu
Tom's personal homepage Tom Mitchell Director-Mld/Fredkin Prof. of Comp.Sci., CS tom.mitchell@cmu.edu
Peter V. Nagy PhD Student, RI
Reid's personal homepage Reid Simmons Research Prof/Assoc Dir Educ/PhD Chair, RI/CS reids@cs.cmu.edu
Chuck Thorpe Dean, Qatar Campus thorpe@qatar.cmu.edu
David's personal homepage David Wettergreen Assoc. Research Professor dsw@ri.cmu.edu
William Red's personal homepage William Red L. Whittaker University Professor red@ri.cmu.edu

Past Sub-projects

Perception for Rock Sampling - We are developing a set of perception modules for extracting the potential samples from visual data, building models of their shapes, and using the models to pick up and store the sample.
Terrain Mapping - We have developed an algorithm to build elevation maps from range images, accounting for the desired resolution and the current sensor orientation.

Recent publications [View all 25 publications]

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