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[Starver]

"...but I'm not sure I'd go quite that far with bipedal locomotion [...] "

(There's gonna be some middle-ground between two motors per limb and five or six joint-dedicated ones per each humanly-articulated legs. Although I think the actual solution is more like a central powerplant distributing power, perhaps hydraulically, into scaled micropiston elements, via some kind of black-box 'hydraulic loom' pressure distribution system.)

[Trekkin]

So you'd only go halfway toward implementing the totally irrelevant solution? Fair enough, although I'm not sure what that would look like, especially since balance is not the root of the problem.

[Starver]

(Un?)Fortunately, I'm not implementing anything. 

[smjjames]

Going bipedal with those minimalist actuator wouldn't work because you'd need to move the limb quickly or the robot would fall.

As for locomotion with those, I can see it being used in a multilimbed climbing robot or one where it doesn't have to hold a lot of weight.

Probably could work well for microrobots especially if you have actuators that can move quicly. The second article shared shows a bunch of non-locomotion uses. edit: Should work down to even cell sized micro/nano robots.

editwhiletyping: I suppose it could also bring down the costs of some robots by making them simpler with fewer complex parts you'd have to replace or maintain.

[Trekkin]

edit: Should work down to even cell sized micro/nano robots.

I mean, yes, in the sense that once you're below inertia-dominated scales it's easier to just float lots of motors around and recruit them at need rather than to try sliding them around, because processivity puts a lower bound on your motor affinity against which the actuator has to fight.

[Starver]

Going bipedal with those minimalist actuator wouldn't work because you'd need to move the limb quickly or the robot would fall.

Amazingly, I already covered that, in the very same sentence as I'd brought up the 'possibility'.

I'm going to say things twice from now on.

Amazingly, I already covered that, in the very same sentence as I'd brought up the 'possibility'.

I'm going to say things twice from now on.

 

[Trekkin]

Or maybe just don't hedge when you don't mean to? I think smjjames and I were both thrown by the "I'm not sure I'd go quite that far" implying there was some way to adapt sliding actuators to walking, and were contesting the implication that they're close to good enough instead of a solution to a fundamentally different problem.

[Kagus]

I don't know how they do it, but Boston Dynamics still seem to have the best solution for bipedal movement, unless there's a newer demonstration from someone else that I haven't seen.

[Max™]

Strike everything I said because I can't stop giggling over the idea of a big serious gundam folding forward and extending another set of struts before windmilling it's arms and legs around to run like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTIpdtv_AK8

[Starver]

(So I was a tad shy of complete and utter elucidation?)

[Kagus]

Strike everything I said because I can't stop giggling over the idea of a big serious gundam folding forward and extending another set of struts before windmilling it's arms and legs around to run like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTIpdtv_AK8

Gadzooks, it's Interstellar all over again!

[Max™]

I don't know what to make of that.

[Kagus]

I don't know what to make of that.

Perhaps this could be of some assistance?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I was referencing the movement of the robots articulated machines in Interstellar, as demonstrated at about 6:12 in this clip:
https://youtu.be/QdOPL-2SkmI

Also, wow, 8.6 on IMDB? It was a fun movie, but not 8.6 fun.

[Max™]

Weird, but I was thinking more like the motion from something good: like this around 19 seconds in.

[smjjames]

Given that design... how is it not just better to remove the "legs" altogether and replace it with a wheel? Literally same damn principle. Thing spinning around fast, propelling object forward.

That was my thought too, it's just using spoke legs instead of a wheel while using the same gyroscopic principle.

Arguably, that could actually have an advantage over a wheel vs debris strewn (rocky) and/or uneven ground that could throw off a wheeled vehicle of the same size if you have springs in the legs.