HyQ

A metallic and high-tech looking quadruped robot. — HyQ is Italy's answer to BigDog. Photo: IIT

HyQ is a four-legged robot built as a platform to study quadrupedal locomotion. It can walk over obstacles, trot and rear like a horse, squat jump, and even kick things with its powerful hydraulic legs.

Creator

Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Year

2011

Country

Italy 🇮🇹

Categories

Research

Features

HyQ jumps, runs, kicks a box. Video: IIT

Did you know?

HyQ stands for hydraulic quadruped.

Side view of HyQ highlights it's four powerful jointed legs. — HyQ's legs are powered by hydraulic actuators. Photo: IIT

Audio

Claudio Semini, a researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology and one of the creators of HyQ, describes the robot's first test out of the lab.

Photo: IIT

History

HyQ is a quadruped robot designed for rough terrain missions. Created by a team at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) led by Claudio Semini, HyQ can walk and trot, and also jump and even kick things. The robot uses hydraulic actuators, which allow it to move quickly and nimbly, with an eerie animal-like quality. Or as Semini explains, HyQ has a "wide repertoire of motion skills that allows it to negotiate challenging and dynamically changing terrain." In 2019, IIT announced a brand-new and massively upgraded quadruped called HyQReal. It's designed to be big, powerful, and rugged, and in a demonstration HyQReal was able to pull a 3-ton airplane.

Specs

Overview: Equipped with torque-controlled legs with variable stiffness. Able to jump more than 20 cm (7.8 in) up in the air and land on its feet.
Status: Inactive
Year: 2011
Website: dls.iit.it/hyq
Width: 50 cm
Height: 100 cm (fully extended legs)
Length: 100 cm
Weight: 70 kg
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Sensors: Stereo cameras, laser range finder, IMU, force-torque sensors and high-resolution encoders in each joint.
Actuators: Eight hydraulic cylinders controlled by high-performance servovalves. Four brushless DC motors with harmonic drive gears.
Degrees of Freedom (DoF): 12 (Leg: 3 DoF x 4)
Materials: Torso and legs made of aerospace-grade aluminum alloy and stainless steel.
Compute: PC/104 embedded computer with data acquisition boards.
Software: Xenomai Linux real-time OS with SL simulation and control software package.
Power: Tethered
Cost: $1.2 million (development cost)