KAIST's Quadruped Walking Robot 'Lybo' Completes World's First Full Marathon Course
KAIST's Quadruped Walking Robot 'Lybo' Completes World's First Full Marathon Course
Blog Article
A four-legged walking robot developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has successfully completed the full marathon course for the first time in the world.
KAIST announced that 'Livo2', developed by the research team of Professor Hwangbo Je-min of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, completed the '2024 Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon Full Course (42.195 km)' held at Sangju Citizen's Stadium in Sangju, Gyeongsangbuk-do on the morning of the 17th, with a record of 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 52 seconds.
The Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon is known to be difficult even for amateur marathoners, as it features two 50m high hills at the 14km and 28km points.
Walking robots are high-difficulty systems that must be able to withstand periodic vibrations caused by impacts that occur when they come into contact with the ground due to the nature of their walking.
The research team internalized the motor driver circuit to minimize 파워볼 actuator loss and increase control bandwidth, significantly improving walking efficiency and stability.
In addition, Professor Hwangbo developed a walking controller using a reinforcement learning algorithm to enable stable walking in various environments such as slopes, stairs, and icy roads in the self-developed 'Raisim' simulation environment.
In particular, the joint mechanism with high power transparency was able to efficiently charge energy on the way downhill and absorb some of the energy used to climb steep hills.
The recently developed Livo2 version can walk 43 km continuously on a single charge. This is more than twice the longest distance (20 km) of existing four-legged walking robots.
“This demonstrates that Libo2 has the walking performance to reliably perform services such as delivery and patrol in an urban environment,” said Lee Chung-in, a doctoral candidate (joint first author). “In future research, we will add Libo’s autonomous driving capabilities and strive to achieve the world’s best walking performance in mountainous and disaster environments.”