Earlier this month, Caltech Ph.D. Grad Student, Jacob Reher, gave us, Base 11 AMP (Aerospace Mentorship Program) students, a fantastic tour of the Caltech Advanced Mechanical Bipedal Experimental Robotics LAB also known as the AMBER LAB. Jacob showed us the semi-autonomous experimental robot Cassie (see photo below), prosthetic/exoskeleton designs and nonlinear and hybrid systems.
Photo of Cassie and I by Maria Zyryanova.
Cassie’s biomimicry bird-leg inspired design was built by Agility Robotics. Cassie is battery operated with zero friction joints and can walk continuously for almost 4 hours. Cassie is more efficient than the DURUS humanoid, because Cassie has half the mass and has about 2/3 the amount of motor. DURUS reminded me a little of the Enforcement Droid series 209 in the RoboCop movie. Jacob doesn’t like to do walking experiments behind DURUS because the robot experienced a glitch and powerfully kicked through the wall during one of their tests.
The AMBER Lab prosthetic designs we were shown were also fascinating. Ideally, these prosthetic designs would be a temporary solutions for humans transitioning from paralysis to regaining full movement of their own limbs. Personally, I would prefer to see doctors making headway with regrowing limbs in the near future. That said, the AMBER Lab’s exoskeleton was a real treat to see in action. The beauty of the Caltech AMBER Lab exoskeleton is that a paraplegic person can use it to walk independently without a crutch as other designs needed in the past. See photo of Randy and I in his exoskeleton below (photo by Maria Zyryanova).
Thanks to Caltech Ph.D. Candidate Joel Lawson who organized this unforgettable tour for us.
Elisa Shebaro 