Robot Dog pulls 3-ton plane Ray Bradbury turns over in grave 451 times.
Why? Well, this is not science fiction.
ITT’s (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) HyQReal robot dog pulled a three-ton Piaggio P180 Avanti passenger airplane at the Genova Airport in Italy.
The HyQReal bot is more reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s frightening firemen’s robot attack dog than Boston Dynamic’s animal-based robot, the cinderblock-hurling Cheetah [read our article on that bot here].
The HyQReal dog is 4 feet, 4 inches long, about 3 feet tall, weighing 287 pounds, and it just pulled a 3-ton PLANE about 33 feet!
If you have not read about government enforcement dog-bots keeping the peace as they overpower transgressors in Ray Bradbury’s masterpiece Fahrenheit 451, you should stop putting your kids and animals atop your robotic vacuums and show some respect.
The HyQReal had no power cables attached to it when dragging a plane.
It stood on its own four legs and was powered enough for the monumental task at hand.
The robot is a joint design from IIT’s Dynamic Legged Systems Lab and Moog and is meant to add a dynamic element in disaster and emergency situations where an array of sensors can be used to research the area, while the bot itself is strong enough to move heavy planes.
And (creepily enough) it will be smart and agile enough to open doors, project leader Claudio Semini said in an email (possibly using its robotic paws with the dexterity of a humanoid?).
The software and hardware advancements are breaking revolutionary ground in robotics all over the world.
Students at MIT can find seven-foot tall biped bots traversing the woods and hopping fallen trees on any given day of the week now.
And now a trip to the airport can reveal Ray Bradbury’s invention, and nightmare, along the runways hauling 3-ton planes to prove far it can go.
The HyQReal is truly remarkable as a human achievement, and I just hope I do not see transport boats deploying these on the shores of my on home island to invade.
