Also, I'm watching some lectures for a MIT underactuated robotics class (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeEqtTgDXFc). The professor says in one of the videos that the people who end up creating Boston Dynamics also took that course. From what I watched until now, nothing is explicitly programmed (by some vague definition of "explicitly programmed"), you just find some inputs that makes the dynamics of the model behave the way you want.
Almost certainly the birdlike movement is the outcome of the robot dynamics, and not some hardcoded rules. But things like avoiding hitting obstacles or estimating the distance, I think that needs to be explicitly programmed (and then used as input to the model such as "move the end effector to that position").
Yes, it makes sense to mimic nature sometimes. But when it comes to robotic manipulators, loaders, etc - there's absolutely no reason to copy biological systems limited by strength, speed, or joint mobility. They seem to be deliberately going for that uncanny valley effect.
Eventually, someone is going to admit it. Until then, this is hugely entertaining.
Perturbations do exist and they add up in the PID feedback loop. For example you can see in the video that the way each box is handled varies and that the robot reorients itself to pick/drop boxes.
Consider a simpler 1 dimensional example: https://youtu.be/JpNAhKT7yY4?t=101 (warning, loud). You can observe the system adjusting to the hits by the person, but also when left alone it will have to adjust to accumulating externalities like gravity. Also note the natural/biological looking swaying motion that results.
You know, sometimes you see a solution, and it's just so elegant... This isn't elegant, or brilliant. This is an attempt to solve self-imposed, artificial problems.
P.S. people who liked your pendulum video (I did), might also enjoy this drone pole acrobatics video:
Similar problems are likely to elicit similar solutions.
This one for example has an organic birdlike head motion. Is that pre-programmed or a natural outcome of their control system dynamics. The MIT technologyreview page says "Each one is created with carefully pre-programmed movements and will take many, many takes to get right before it’s shared."
So is it a sequence of individual actions: align to pallet using registration cards -> move forward with reaching distance -> detect box position -> use box picking algorithm to pick box -> backup fixed precalculated distance -> turn 90 degrees -> move forward to destination etc. This would be a brittle solution that has to be reprogrammed for the next task.
Or is it a more general closed loop solution: Theres a pile of boxes there. Move it here. Use your sensors to plan a trajectory and sequence of actions to accomplish the goal.
That's what I want to know.