A Robot That Walks, Flies, Skateboards, Slacklines

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00:00This is a robot that walks, flies, skateboards, and slacklines, but why?

00:10A portion of this video was sponsored by Bluehost. More about them at the end of the show.

00:15There are lots of bipedal robots out there, and drones are ubiquitous. But until now,

00:21no one had engineered walking and flying technology to work together in a single robot.

00:27So it's the first robot that truly integrates the walking and the flying. It's not just a drone with legs.

00:34It's a Leonardo, and it stands for Legs On Board Drone. So I think it's a pretty good name.

00:41Why is this potentially useful?

00:43Yeah, so any flying vehicles actually have to start from the ground to take off, and eventually

00:48they cannot stay in the air forever. They have to eventually come down. But sometimes they have to

00:53come down on the very challenging terrain or some obstacles. So it's actually a good idea to have

00:59these controllable legs so they can actually land in a very interesting configuration of posture or

01:06orientation. But there are additional benefits. A robot like this is more stable than a regular drone.

01:12I view these propellers almost like an arm. So some people might say that,

01:16oh, you guys are cheating because, I mean, bipedal robots do not have propellers,

01:21but we are essentially using the propellers to do additional stabilization.

01:31So basically you generate the lift or thrust of course to cancel somewhat the weight of the robot.

01:38But that's really a secondary fact. The most important thing is basically posture or orientation

01:43stabilization.

01:50Good job. That is so cool to see.

01:52So the main facility for this lab is this one. It's a gigantic fan array.

01:58I can see all the fans now.

02:00Yeah, we have, you can't start counting, but 1,296 computer fans. Those are really literally computer

02:06fans.

02:06How fast can it generate wind?

02:09So up to 15 meter per second or 20 meter per second.

02:12It's like a wind tunnel without the need for a tunnel.

02:14Yes.

02:15It might mess with our audio or with our microphones. Whoa.

02:19The idea of this smoke machine is to actually visualize the flow,

02:22but also with all these additional sensors like infrared cameras or radar and radar,

02:27how we can actually figure out the kind of location or environment around your vehicle

02:32in the presence of this fog.

02:35And I wanted to feel their power for myself.

02:39All right, you ready?

02:40Yeah, let's do it.

02:41All right.

02:46That was so cool.

02:56I love it.

02:58They used this facility to test Leonardo to see how stable he is,

03:02even in different wind conditions.

03:16And we showed that Leo is more robust than a drone,

03:19because a drone gets blown away by the wind.

03:21But then Leo does not because of its ground contact.

03:24So for example, if you go hiking and there's like suddenly a lot of wind,

03:27you're not going to fall because you have the ground contact.

03:31But for a drone, it might be blown away.

03:35So we actually took one of the whiteboards that we have at home and we put oil, so we applied perturbations to Leo.

03:49And what's happening is as you push Leo, instead of falling, it stays upright, but it also slides on the whiteboard.

03:54So that's an interesting capability.

03:56So it's very robust.

03:58You said perturbations, are you poking the robot?

04:04Yes, without harming the robot, we are gentle.

04:08Leonardo is so stable and good at adjusting its balance that it can skateboard.

04:12That's a fancy trick, not many people can go backwards on a skateboard.

04:18How did you get the idea for a robot that will skateboard?

04:29Should I say the truth or make a nice story?

04:33Tell us the truth.

04:34Yeah, so we went hiking and we saw about 10 people going down the mountain on a skateboard.

04:40And then we thought, wow, this is really cool.

04:42What if we try our robots to make it do this?

04:44So we went to the first shop and we bought a skateboard.

04:48We modified it and we tried it and it worked.

05:04So do you think it allows the robot to save energy by riding on a skateboard?

05:08It's more efficient because it uses the legs less.

05:11The legs are basically used to steer.

05:13And then it's just the propellers that I use to accelerate the skateboard forward and backward.

05:17So yeah, it makes it save a bit more energy.

05:21The propellers, of course, make it possible to skateboard backwards, something I struggled with.

05:27I definitely would help if I had a propeller.

05:33But the real challenge was slacklining.

05:43This looks incredibly unstable.

05:45So I think this proves the point of just like how important control systems are.

05:50You can tell from the footage, I have no idea what I'm doing.

05:56All right.

05:57I thought I would be slightly better at that.

05:59Let's give it another shot.

06:02Okay.

06:04Can anyone slackline?

06:06Oh, this is impossible.

06:14I need a robot to do this for me.

06:23I like the sidestepping technique.

06:33Maybe I should have been doing that.

06:37Trying to like copy his technique.

06:39I tried to get some tips by watching Leonardo.

06:55But improvement was negligible.

06:57I should have prepared.

07:04You might think it's cheating to use propellers.

07:06But the robot is clearly not flying.

07:09It is supporting itself, mostly using the rope.

07:11And it's able to stabilize itself, even with a wild bouncing.

07:15So human professional slackliner, if you see some of their videos, actually they use the arm

07:22stretched and then they can balance themselves.

07:24We don't have the arms for Leo yet.

07:27We are planning to add the manipulation for that it can actually carry some object.

07:31But in the meantime, we are using the propellers to stabilize the Leo while it's actually working

07:36on a slackline.

07:38It's funny because like the robot feels like it's got kind of a personality to it.

07:42The way it walks and flies.

07:44Yeah, right.

07:45It's just totally something you're not used to seeing.

07:47Yeah, it looks natural.

07:48Actually, I have to say that the sensors are sampled at 1,000 times per second.

07:53But the controller is actually being recomputed, whatever signal you're sending to propellers

07:59and the leg joints, 200 times per second.

08:01So it's a pretty fast computation.

08:04200 times a second, it is adjusting what it's doing to maintain balance.

08:08Yes, especially propeller control signal.

08:10How does that compare to humans?

08:13Humans.

08:14So humans can do very sophisticated tasks.

08:17But in terms of a fast reaction, it's very crude machine.

08:21So humans in overall has a few seconds of delay, time delay.

08:26Is this why I was struggling on the slackline?

08:28Maybe.

08:30How do you feel about the performance here today?

08:32Yeah, I think it beat you.

08:34I mean, not that that's hard, but this is very impressive.

08:38If you imagine a robot like Leonardo in the future, like the greatest Leonardo you could make,

08:44what would that robot look like and do?

08:48So definitely having a Leo-like robot in space, that would be amazing.

08:53But of course, depending on where you go, you might not be able to use propellers.

08:57So then you would need to use thrusters.

08:59So eventually, yes, we want to develop this lag-based adaptive landing gear.

09:04And then we give that to next generation Mars helicopter or next generation flying cars,

09:10so that it can actually land in very challenging condition.

09:14And still move around once it's on the ground.

09:15And then once, yeah, once you land, then you can walk over it.

09:22Imagine if you have a cliff and then you have the robot just jump out of the cliff,

09:26deploy the propellers and fly.

09:28That would be wild.

09:37Oh, hey there.

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