Locomotion had always been the one of the biggest achievements in robotics in general. The processes and the parts needed to make any kind of robots move is essential to its efficiency in helping man in industries.
A model known as Agility Robotics’ Digit biped is probably the most famous ‘walking bot’ in recent creation. It was impressive at the get go but of course it still required necessary upgrades if it was to be expected to carry out tasks like delivering packages in the outside world.
It is of this very reason that Agility Robotics have done advancements and upgrades to their model to make it more capable and robust.
According to Damion Shelton, one of the robot’s creator and researcher “The feet now include a roll degree of freedom, so that Digit can resist lateral forces without needing to side step. This allows Digit v2 to balance on one foot statically, which Digit v1 and Cassie could not do. The larger foot also dramatically decreases load per unit area, for improved performance on very soft surfaces like sand.”
Digit literally have more steps ahead of him before a practical walking robot can be sent out to do service tasks. But there is no denying, this is a big step forward for locomotion in robotics everywhere.