Salto, wall-jumping robot, Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA

Roboticists at UC Berkeley have designed a small robot that can leap into the air and then spring off a wall, or perform multiple vertical jumps in a row, resulting in the highest robotic vertical jumping agility ever recorded. The agility of the robot opens new pathways of locomotion that were not previously attainable. The researchers hope that one day this robot and other vertically agile robots can be used to jump around rubble in search and rescue missions.

To compare the vertical agility of robots and animals, the researchers developed a new metric to measure vertical agility, defined as the height that something can reach with a single jump in Earth gravity, multiplied by the frequency at which that jump can be made. Salto’s robotic vertical jumping agility is 1.75 meters per second, which is higher than the vertical jumping agility of a bullfrog (1.71 meters per second) but short of the vertical jumping agility of the galago (2.24). The robot with the second highest vertical agility that the team measured is called Minitaur (1.1 m/s).

“Developing a metric to easily measure vertical agility was key to Salto’s design because it allowed us to rank animals by their jumping agility and then identify a species for inspiration,” said Duncan Haldane, a robotics Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, who led the work. Haldane is a student in the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab of Ronald Fearing, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences.

SALTO weighs 100 grams (3.5 ounces), is 26 centimeters (10.2 inches) tall when fully extended, and can jump up to one meter. Salto’s maximum jump height was roughly 1.008 meters (3.3 ft). For the wall jump, Salto attained an average height gain of approximately 1.21 meters (3.97 ft). Other robots can jump higher than Salto in a single leap. For example, TAUB, a locust-inspired jumping robot, can leap to 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) in a single jump.

Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally

Special thanks to the Cal Parkour group, Duncan Haldane, Justin Yim, Professor Ron Fearing

This work was supported by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory under the Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology Collaborative Technology Alliance, and by the National Science Foundation.

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Salto: saltatorial agile locomotion on terrain obstacles.
``Robotic vertical jumping agility via series-elastic power modulation'' Science Robotics vol. 1, no. 1, 6 Dec 2016.

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In this week’s episode, we learn about a new wall-jumping robot, using sensor-integrated blocks to better identify developmental disabilities, we learn about creatures with camouflage, a new procedure to detect exposure to dangerous nuclear materials, and finally, the discovery of the oldest know fossil tumor

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Salto is a small jumping robot from UC Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab. With the addition of aerodynamic thrusters for out-of-plane orientation control, the upgraded Salto-1P demonstrates repeated free hopping in a Vicon motion capture environment. This work will be presented at the 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

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Salto-1P is a one-legged hopping robot built at UC Berkeley.

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Salto-1P is a small monopedal jumping robot capable of continuous high-power hopping. We demonstrate a new control algorithm that can land Salto-1P's foot at particular spots on the ground like jumping on stepping stones or playing one-leg hopscotch. We call this "deadbeat foot placement hopping control". Precise foot placement enables Salto-1P to jump on surfaces like furniture. This work will be presented at the 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

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Drift-Free Roll and Pitch Estimation for High-Acceleration Hopping

Jumping robot SALTO estimates its own attitude, so it can jump outside the motion capture lab for the first time! Justin K. Yim, Eric K. Wang, and R.S. Fearing, (IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation, 2019)

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The small hopping robot Salto-1P can run and hop on furniture, but it couldn't hit a target smaller than a dinner plate or stop bouncing. With a new balancing control algorithm, Salto-1P can now jump to a narrow target and stick its landing like a gymnast.

This work was a collaboration between researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and is published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, titled "Precision robotic leaping and landing using stance-phase balance", DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.2976597

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The small hopping robot Salto-1P can run and hop on furniture, but it couldn't hit a target smaller than a dinner plate or stop bouncing. With a new balancing control algorithm, Salto-1P can now jump to a narrow target and stick its landing like a gymnast.

This video is the presentation given for the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

This work was a collaboration between researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and is published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, titled "Precision robotic leaping and landing using stance-phase balance", DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.2976597

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