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 ) 
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    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.