ETH Zurich: Robot dog ANYMal climbs a normal ladder
Robotic dogs have great difficulty climbing ladders. ETH Zurich has solved the problem and trained an ANYMal robot dog accordingly.
The robot dog ANYMal climbs up a ladder onto a stack of pallets.
(Image: ETH ZĂĽrich)
Roboticists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) have taught the four-legged robot dog ANYMal from ANYbotics to climb a standard ladder. This is a problem that has so far remained largely unsolved. Only a few robots manage to climb a ladder at all – and if they do, then only very slowly.
Scientists at ETH Zurich have managed to modify an ANYMal robot dog so that it can climb a ladder quickly. In the study "Robust Ladder Climbing with a Quadrupedal Robot", which has been published as a preprint on Arxiv, the scientists describe the underlying method.
The researchers initially had to contend with the fact that the ANYMal robot dog only has rubber paws. As with other robotic dogs, these are ideal for walking on different surfaces, but not for climbing ladders, as it is possible to slip off the rungs.
When climbing a ladder, people usually use their hands to grip the rungs and hold on securely. The robotics team at ETH Zurich therefore developed a corresponding hook-paw so that the robot dog can also hold on to a rung. They taught the robot how to use the hook with the help of reinforcement learning.
Videos by heise
Simulation and imitation
The researchers accelerated the training using a privileged teacher-student approach. In simulations, the robot dog climbed different types of ladders, including those with deliberately installed faults. These include ladders that wobble or are missing individual rungs. The scientists specifically observed the robot's behavior in response to the faults. If problems occurred, for example, the researchers trained the robot dog manually in the simulation by showing it how to react in a specific situation. The robot dog was able to reproduce this by imitation, enabling it to learn robust climbing skills in a short space of time.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externes YouTube-Video (Google Ireland Limited) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (Google Ireland Limited) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
The scientists transferred the training data from the simulation to an ANYMal robot dog and tested its abilities on various real ladders under laboratory conditions. In around 90 percent of cases, the robot was capable of climbing the ladder safely. The hooked paws made a big difference compared to the robot dog's normal paws.
The roboticists at ETH Zurich now want to further increase the precision of climbing and teach ANYMal to climb ladders in unstructured environments. The researchers also intend to dispense with motion detection without negatively affecting the climbing performance.
(olb)
