ETH Zurich researchers unveil four-legged ANYmal AI robot able to complete obstacle courses like K-9s in boot camp

ETH Zürich robotics researchers have unveiled a four-legged ANYmal robot capable of navigating complex terrains by using highly-trained AI modules for movement, vision and location. These state-of-art modules extend the range of obstacles and terrains quadrupedal robots can independently navigate.

Robotic ‘dogs’ have previously been shown to navigate clean walkways and building corridors as well as hills and outdoor terrains, but relied upon humans to guide training, long compute times to determine the best way to move, or prior knowledge of the environment. The ETH Zürich research bypasses these limitations, and the ANYmal is able to dynamically recover from falls and navigate complex surfaces despite being fully trained within a Nvidia Isaac Gym simulation while unsupervised.

Three modules comprising the AI brain

The vision module sees the world using six Intel Realsense depth cameras and a Velodyne LiDAR powered by a Nvidia Jetson Orin controller. Since laser and infrared scanning only returns the position of individual points, robots face roadblocks navigating underneath obstacles or to higher locations due to missing information. The ETH researchers work around this by reconstructing the world in 3D from the scans.

The movement module contains five actions: climb down, climb up, crouch, jump, and walk. Each was trained under increasingly difficult challenges. For example, the virtual robot was trained to crouch under lower and lower tables while moving forward, or jump from one platform to another while the gap increased.

The navigation module takes what the vision module sees and learns to combine it with the heading, position, and timing each movement skill requires to complete tough, simulated courses. The module was trained on 3000 test courses and learned to navigate over 96% successfully.

ANYmal in action

Once all three modules were trained in simulation, the AI software brain was installed in a 55 kg ANYmal D robot powered by two sets of Intel i7 CPU, 8GB RAM, and 240 GB SSD. Video of the ANYmal completing courses in real-life show its skillful ability to quickly overcome challenging terrain and obstacles that would stop other robots.

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