so this is the mantis hexapod walking
machine as a six-legged walking machine
that was developed for wear to test two
things really it was to test whether the
software that I developed on smaller
machines would scale up to larger
machines for in hospital industrial
application and as a creative
engineering project so trying to cover
two things in one
the software on board here was developed
original my much smaller ones and that
was always called the hex engine the
hexapod engine and then for this larger
machine the hex engine had to evolve
quite a lot because it turns out that
there are all sorts of issues with the
weight of the machine that the way the
software no longer worked it worked very
well on the insect sized machines but
when the scale got up and the mass went
up it all broke apart so the hex engine
as I called it got completely
redeveloped and there was all sorts of
safety features that went into it and it
also went from a microcontroller
it was actually a DSP controller and I
ended up putting onto a Linux embedded
system which is actually a 486 running a
hundred megahertz with a real cut-down
Linux system at boots in seven seconds
and that's called the hex engine and
that is the core of the control system
the hex engine basically does all of the
inverse kinematic mess and all of the
control algorithms the gait generation
and all that stuff and it talks to six
control stations on each leg which are
basically DSP pic processors running PID
loops and they close the loop on each
leg for each axis on each leg and
they're all set on the can bus so the
hex engines basically sending out what
angles the legs need to be up there just
doing the closed loop stuff and they're
also monitoring some of the data such as
the sensors on the leg and sending it
back to the hex engine then there's also
an Ethernet network on here which is
talking to a Windows CE II user
interface and that's about a 25 second
boot system is now at the tractor
actually lock screens you get in
tractors which has been reprogrammed for
this purpose and that has all of the
information to the driver so it's like a
bird's eye view of the machine I can see
what all the legs are doing I can change
configuration I have your engine control
panel if you likes or revs and flow
rates and oil pressure that kind of
thing so that's all on an Ethernet
connection and in fact that the reason
why it's underneath a net connection and
that also talks to the joysticks in the
cab they are actually on another campus
they talk to the window seee machine the
window see machine on Ethernet because
it was also on Wi-Fi you can take all
those controls out of a cab and run it
via Wi-Fi remotely so basically the the
core is running more real time and the
user interface is a part of an offline
system it doesn't need to be there if it
crashes the machine isn't gonna fall
apart
is it worried that it can be
remote-controlled no not really I mean
you know it's not the best of security I
could probably up it a bit it's only
quite low-level Wi-Fi security but then
someone would have to figure out my
protocol that I wrote that goes on top
of that to control the machine so you
know it's only everyone for 15 minutes
at a time if anyone can figure that out
do you know what I'd shake their hand so
so inside the cab here and we've got a
joystick on each side and and a bunch of
buttons which I don't label up for four
reasons just to confuse people only I
know what they do these are on a can bus
that just talks to this module over here
which is this robust TFT screen
touchscreen and has a bunch of buttons
down the side and this is my operator
driver view panel and if you like so
this is where I can see everything
that's going on the machine I can select
certain modes and I get questions fed up
from the heck's Engine 2 here like do
you want to do this do you want to do
that are you ready to power up and so on
and then the left-hand side over here I
have another more basic control panel so
this is rpm flow rate oil pressure and
temperature so it's basically if this
goes down I can still see all of that
stuff here and this also has the big
kill switch and the key start so this is
more like the engine control panel of a
normal car and this is more like a fancy
dashboard version so this is tethered
via ethernet down to the the hex engine
the control system which is around the
side here you come around the side set
up underneath the drivers chair here so
this is my 4 h6 stack in here and it can
it's a PC 104 is the modular size and in
these really nice robust cans and
there's two cam buses coming at the
bottom here and then there's the
Ethernet connection it's powered through
the cam bus connector here and then
there's another connector here which is
a serial connector and that's going to
little IMU measurement system so I can
basically correct the body attitude
according to gravity and level the
Machine off so this is quite a nice
little unit and there's a
very convenient little a reset button
just under here somewhere so I'm gonna
do a I'm gonna do a soft reset when
things aren't going right we just
reached down under the seat what's a
MINIX built around must of course a long
time ago now but it's basically the
whole the whole core was built on a
build root system and it was just
stripped down to the bare minimum and it
was a thing that the the the processor
board in there was by a company called
vortex
I think off the top of my head and they
already had like a version of oh no
stripped-down Linux running I just took
that and stripped it back further to add
it on some stuff for the cam bus and
things and built it back up from there
I'm sure it was called a vortex board
from what I remember and that was
probably all based on some kind of
Debian based initial version I guess
yeah I come from the film industry and
the creative side um you can't just let
it's got a look at Cystic lead please I
was talking to someone today you know
half of my problem with this is that I
couldn't let things go
and I could off because it would have
been fine it would have worked fine like
I wanted to seal up the whole of the
engine bay and stuff like that and in
the end I ran out of time and energy and
actually most people want to see the
engine so it'd have been silly if I did
but the aesthetics are important to me
but they're not needed to operate the
cab looks really cool but the whole
thing's removable so you can take the
cab and the seat off and then you could
have a different deck layout on there if
you wanted to so ya know it's um I don't
know why I have to make things look good
but it you know why not I didn't have an
investor for this project because we did
have commercial interest in it yeah it's
the price of a house you know it's it's
not cheap and I did three years of my
own time on this and I wasn't paid so
there's three years out of work for me
as well and it really to be honest
though if you were gonna build something
like this
I stayed properly because we didn't do a
proper job but if you did it with a team
a proper team of people I would say this
is five to six people and I would say
this is one to two million pound project
if you did it for a company properly you
know we did it as best we could on a
much more a much much smaller budget
still insignificant a significant budget
much more and half of it issue I had
whether it was trying to do so many
things on my own I had to be the
hydraulics expert the engine expert the
software expert the electronics expert
and I'm only two of those things you
know I mean so
a real tricky project what it does at
the moment is about 1 mile an hour that
is limited more but from the mechanical
structure than it is from the the
hardware of the machine I built it to go
up to 4 miles an hour so I have capacity
in the pump and flow rate for 4 miles an
hour I think it's probably closer to 3
miles an hour now I've studied it but
it's actually limited by there's too
much flex in the legs in this direction
the joints needed to be much stiffer on
the legs up here and down here we need
to make them much bigger probably twice
as big as what you see now and then
maybe if I had that stiffness in the
y-axis as I call it in this which is in
a straight line then we might get up to
2 mile an hour at least all three miles
an hour and that would be it's not about
speed at all it's never been about speed
you know it has a foot pressure when
it's standing on six feet the same as a
human foot standing on one foot so it
does very little damage to the terrain
it was never about a speed thing that
all they needed was a machine that would
cope with rough terrain and have lots of
traction in rough terrain and yeah it's
to me speed isn't an issue on that
bothers a lot of people number one
YouTube comment is too slow but you know
if you don't understand real physics of
stuff so it was pretty much for shows
now I think I mean we would like to do
something else with it I'd love to move
it on to a company or a museum or
something like that I'd be happy for a
museum to take it they have the right
money the problem is now that obviously
it's you know it's an aging machine is
five years old now and at least a lot of
tinkering to keep it going
so to sell it to someone as a work and
entity would be quite tricky because
obviously you know someone's got to
maintain it and every time I get it out
there's something needs adjusting so
yeah I don't know what the future will
be so it goes on trailer that trailer
over there part of the whole design
process was how are we going to move it
around and so we built it in a way that
the front legs fold in these middle legs
fold right there way back flat to the
body they have an extra range of motion
on them
it basically lifts itself above the
trailer you drive the trailer on the
leaf and it drops yourself back on and
folds up technically speaking no lifting
gear required
this episode of computerphile was
brought to you by audible what we all
know audible they're the audiobook
people and if you go to
www.mptv.org/outdoorwisconsin ford can
accelerated technology disrupt our
entire economic system and will there be
any such thing as a skilled job in the
future
checkout rise of the robots by martin
ford go to www.bookshare.org
[Music]
mr. Tom if anyone can figure that out
once you get inside it's pretty hard to
confuse them for a working toilet
[Music]