Big Dog from Boston Dynamics is the most advanced quadruped robot on the planet.

It was designed as a robotic pack mule for our troops. Soldiers often have to carry a lot of gear with them and the more gear they have to carry obviously their range goes down. I mean there is a limit to the human body. So DARPA funded a project for a robotic pack mule.

Why not just use a motorized cart you may be thinking. Carts with wheels are severely limited in the terrain they can cross. A wheeled cart for example may have incredible difficulties climbing over broken terrain to deliver goods to forward troops. A legged robot can simply step over an obstacle.

Duh.

So they have come up with both LittleDog and BigDog. Little dog is a small proof of concept robot designed to show the promise of walking over rough terrain, gait architectures etc....

BigDog is the whole show. Weighing in at 235 lbs its no lightweight. It's also very capable. It has a carrying capacity of 350 lb payload. So yes if you were inclined you could ride it. It could drag injured soldiers, replenish supplies to remote sites, or even just carry your rucksack if you don't want to.

It does this with a lot of sophisticated programming and powerful computers. It can recover from what would appear to be catastrophic blows. It judges the terrain and decides where to put its feet. I've even seen the thing trot along and then JUMP over an obstacle. Way to damn cool. It can and does navigate inclines, deep snow, ice, water, gravel, dirt, almost anything.

Now this is a military project but the technology will more than likely be available to the commercial world. Could this be the new rescue workers for large scale disasters? Or will it be the next BIG robot pet idea? I dunno, I just know I want one to carry the camping gear on my next trip.

Check out the videos and tell me what you think.