Flame is the name of a roughly human-shaped

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

, developed in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

by Daan Hobbelen of the Mechanical Engineering department of

Delft University Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...

. Robot motion is more easily done with wheels, but this robot was designed specifically to study human walking. It is 130 cm tall and weights 15 kg. Flame is a continuation of Denise, another walking robot developed at Delft University, which featured in a

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

article in 2005. Just like Denise, Flame walks through controlled falling. It does not try to keep balance, but accepts that it loses balance and reacts to that by placing a foot such that it will stop the fall. Do this continuously, and the result is walking. The idea is that humans walk in the same manner. Flame uses just a little more energy than a human of the same weight. It turned out Flame walked most efficiently if the 'rear heel' is lifted the moment the 'front heel' hits the ground. Humans do the same. Flame works differently from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese robots, which are generally based on assembly line robots and know exactly what to do when because the environment is fixed. For example, they can walk up stairs quite impressively, but only the set of stairs that they have been programmed for. According to Hobbelen this approach is a dead end. Flame is more flexible and reacts to changing circumstances.

References

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* * {{Humanoid robots Bipedal humanoid robots Robots of the Netherlands Delft University of Technology 2000s robots