Tencent Robotics X’s robots can change everything

Four-legged animals are one step ahead, especially in field conditions. In the last few years, robot manufacturers have been trying to use these movements effectively in four-legged robots. A recent move regarding robots came from Tencent Robotics X.

What is Tencent Robotics X’s new robot modeling based on?

Promising developments are being made to enable agile movement in four-legged robots. However, these models are often tested in simulated environments. When implemented on real robots in real-world environments, their performance may sometimes decrease.

Agile took a new step towards realizing four-legged movement. The company started working on a new model using images of moving animals collected by motion sensors and cameras. This approach, called imitation learning, makes it possible to reproduce animal-like movements in some quadruped robots.

Tencent Robotics X researchers in China have introduced new modeling that could make it easier to perform animal-like agile movements in four-legged robots. This framework, introduced in a paper published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, was initially applied to a four-legged robot called MAX, with extremely promising results.

In the new modeling presented by the researchers, a three-stage learning process will be discussed, each focusing on a different movement task and information extraction at the robot perception level. Information obtained using animal movement data will be transferred to robots. This will enable robots to move like real animals. Tencent Robotics X first applied these tests to a four-legged robot called “MAX”.

After data transfer, “MAXX” can imitate animals, overcome complex obstacles and achieve success in chasing games. The company stated that although the model was successful in the first tests, they did not yet know how it would behave in different environments. In the future, the model can be adapted to other quadruped robots. So they can be easy to use in real-world environments.