Module 5 of 14·18 min readOperator
Control and Execution
The Gap Between Intention and Motion
On June 5, 2015, at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals in Pomona, California, Team IHMC (Institute for Human and Machine Cognition)‘s Atlas robot approached a short flight of concrete stairs. The motion plan was correct. The trajectory was correct. The servo loop tracked every commanded joint angle.
What the software got wrong was smaller than that. A state estimator bug caused Atlas to believe it had a full foot on a tread when only half the foot was on the surface. The robot lifted its other leg, shifted weight, and toppled backward onto the concrete.
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This module is part of Robotics.
Full Core Robotics, gated Thrust analysis, and the private Downrange calendar feed.