Scientists Build Robot that Can Ride and Do Bunnyhops
Ai already has better stunt skills than me, as this bunnyhopping motorcycle-riding robot proves
Scientists have for a while been trying to create a robot that can replicate a human by riding a motorcycle, with Yamaha’s Motobot being one of the most high-profile examples.
There’s a new ‘bot in town though, as a team of scientists from the RAI (Robotics and Ai Institute) have built a machine that can ride a bike and perform the kind of bunny hops a BMX-riding teenager could only dream of!
Quite why the team from the RAI have built the machine remains unclear, although we can tell you it is part of the group's ‘Athletic Intelligence’ research programme, and that the machine is called the Ultra Mobile Vehicle (UMV). As the video shows, the UMV can drive, and turn the bike with surprising accuracy. It also can perform jumps, and tricks, and can come to a sudden stop - something the RAI calls a track-stand. All of the driving, landings, balance, and track-stands are accomplished thanks to reinforcement learning, which is a branch of machine learning.
To create the robot, the RAI took a child's balance bike (in this case a £500 carbon fibre Specialized Hotwalk!) and integrated an electric motor within the frame, sending drive to the rear wheel via what looks like a thin belt. On top of that is mounted the rider/robot element, which in this case is a sort of cage that is no doubt full of computers and gyroscopes.
That element of the robot is mounted on a retractable arm which is key to the party piece of the system - bunnyhops! When the robot wants to jump the bike, the arm shoots upwards at high speed, pulling the wheels of the bike off the ground and allowing the machine to reach a height of a few feet.
What is just as impressive as the leap is the way in which the UMV dismounts the table, with the binary ‘brain’ on top of the bike dialling in just enough throttle to instigate a pitch-perfect rear-wheel landing that even Tony Bou would be proud of!
As we said, it’s not totally clear why the RAI has built the UMV, but it’s clear from the video of it riding around the office it’s already a very adept little machine.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
