Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!fitz From: fitz@dirt.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick) Newsgroups: comp.robotics Subject: Re: locomotion: crawling? Message-ID: Date: 3 Jul 90 20:48:54 GMT Reply-To: fitz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick) Organization: Field Robotics Center, CMU Lines: 50 One of the big advantages of walking vs. rolling or crawling (snake) concerns contact with the environment. A rolling or snake-like locomotor is in constant contact with its environment and therefore subject to constraints this imposes. A walking machine makes intermittent contact with the environment and thus the impact of environment constraints can be minimized. The application of snake-like locomotors could be quite extensive and I believe the Japanese have something going in this area. They do have some existing mechanisms in the snake-like manipulator area. My background is in locomotor design and fabrication with all of them falling into the wheeled arena. Yet, I still see the future being legged locomotion of one type or another. Significan insight can be gained by examining nature - she/he/it has been working in this area a lot longer than man and has done the job a heck of a lot better. For locomotion on land, nature predominantly uses legs. Only after man figured out how to modify his environment (roads, paths, etc) did wheels become viable. I personally feel there is quite a bit of pettiness amongst this netgroup which detracts from the possible goals. I do not believe in the truly general machine .... nature says evolve with your environment and optimize. Therefore I believe that almost all configurations have their place whether they are large, small, wheeled, legged, jumping, flying, etc. Too much fingerpointing goes on here - CMU this, JPL that and on and on. I find the ultra-small locomotors interesting, but I am undecided if they are really reality at this snapshot in time. Hopefully, the pettiness will end and this netgroup will truly become a place where ideas can be discussed. Some people are using this netgroup for this purpose and others are taking potshots. Also, people are right when they say that JPL and CMU spent significant time examining the alternatives before settling on something. It is always easy to criticize once a stand has been taken, but a stand must be taken for anything to reach fruition. Sorry for the lecture, its been a bad day.... -- Kerien Fitzpatrick Field Robotics Center The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (412)268-6564 Internet: fitz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu