“Quadruped robots,” e-learning and cultural insights in the era of Covid-19
Angelo Bratta, a doctoral student in the Dynamic Legged System (DLS) lab, coordinated by Claudio Semini of IIT Genoa, Italy, will take us on a discovery of quadruped robots and specifically hydraulically actuated robots, tracing the robot models designed by the IIT research team over 12 years, from the first HyQ in 2010 to the most recent version, HyQReal, in 2019. HyQ, whose acronym stands for Hydraulic Quadruped, is an approximately 90-pound, aluminum alloy, 1-meter-long robot capable of walking, running, jumping, climbing and descending stairs, carrying and pulling weights. This type of robot is designed to provide support to firefighters, Civil Defense and rescue workers in general, intervening in the most dangerous scenarios such as earthquake zones and fires, guided by rescuers operating remotely under safe conditions. DLS researchers are constantly working on the mechanical development of the robot and the implementation of software and algorithms for locomotion and environment perception so that the robot can one day achieve greater autonomy and robustness.
