IIC-CS Joint Colloquium BigDog, a Dynamic Quadruped Robot Dr. Alfred Rizzi, Lead Robotics Scientist, Boston Dynamics WEDNESDAY, October 8, 2008; 4:00 pm 60 Oxford Street, Room 330 Abstract This seminar will describe several ongoing legged robot projects at Boston Dynamics. The focus will be on BigDog, a quadruped robot that can walk, run, balance, climb, carry loads, resist kicks and negotiate rough terrain with new levels of dynamic mobility, robustness and performance. The talk will explore issues related to the system design, performance metrics, efficiency and the experimental evaluation of such systems. Bio Alfred Rizzi is the Lead Robotics Scientist at Boston Dynamics. He is responsible for real-time embedded software development and is an expert in robot control, distributed systems and system integration. Prior to joining Boston Dynamics in 2006, he was an Associate Research Professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where he directed research projects focused on hybrid sensor-based control of complex and distributed dynamical systems. Highlights of these projects include the development of embedded software systems and automated behaviors for novel legged mobile robots (RiSE and RHex). Dr. Rizzi received the Sc.B. degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. from Yale University in 1990 and 1994 respectively. He is a co-recipient of the Nakamura Prize for best paper at the International Symposium on Intelligent Robots and Systems in 2001. He currently serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Robotics Research. _______________________________________________ iic-colloquium mailing list iic-colloquium(a)calists.harvard.edu http://calists.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/iic-colloquium