Tokyo-based start-up Tsubame Industries has developed a 4.5-metre-tall (14.8-feet), four-wheeled robot that looks like “Mobile Suit Gundam” from the wildly popular Japanese animation series, and it can be yours for $3 million.

    •  TWeaK   ( @TWeaK@lemm.ee ) 
      link
      fedilink
      English
      61 year ago

      I get the feeling that, seeing as hydraulics have been around for longer than robotics, it just isn’t practicable to build a robot out of hydraulics - otherwise we’d have them already.

      • Nah, you can’t beat the power density of hydraulics and never will unless room temp superconductors become a thing.

        Big Dog from Boston Dynamic was hydraulic.

        Going that size or bigger, hydraulics is a must.

        The reason you don’t see it is hydraulics is a completely different ball game.

        Controls researchers stick with small and electronic, because that’s what they know.

        It’s very rare to find a controls engineer that understands hydraulics.

        And the hydraulics experts out there, don’t have the background for sophisticated control theory.