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Boston DynamicsUnited States2006

LittleDog

  • Discontinued
  • Under 20 kg
  • Research and development

Key figures as stated by the manufacturer

2 of 6 stated · 4 gapsDiscontinued
  • Weight 3kg6.61lbOur conversion from 3 kg. The manufacturer does not state an imperial figure itself, so the conversion has no source of its own.A
  • Payload, walking not stated
  • Runtime approximately 30minWarning: load condition not statedA
  • Max speed not stated
  • IP rating not stated
  • Indicative price not stated
Deviations and variants in the key figures (2)

Weight

NoteManufacturer-stated total weight of the platform (Platform Specifications summary).

Runtime

CaveatApproximate continuous operation time on internal batteries before recharging; no additional payload specified.

No usable photograph. Length 34 cm, Height 14.3 cm.

Intended use, per the manufacturer

The manufacturer’s words

LittleDog was designed to explore the fundamental relationships among motor learning, dynamic control, perception of the environment, and rough terrain locomotion.

Source: cs.cmu.edu · Retrieved

This category is not our assessment.

Every field in the schema

12 of 33 fields stated

Imperial figures are our own conversion unless the manufacturer states an imperial figure itself. The source letter always belongs to the metric figure — a conversion has no source of its own.

The letter points to the source at the foot of the page. Fields without a figure are dashed: the manufacturer does not state them — that is not the same as zero, and not the same as no.
Field Value Source and caveats
Physical
Weight3kg6.61lbOur conversion from 3 kg. The manufacturer does not state an imperial figure itself, so the conversion has no source of its own.A

NoteManufacturer-stated total weight of the platform (Platform Specifications summary).

Length34cm13.4inOur conversion from 34 cm. The manufacturer does not state an imperial figure itself, so the conversion has no source of its own.A

CaveatOverall body length from the Platform Specifications summary. A separate, more detailed body-parameters table in the same manual gives a narrower core body length of 304 mm — likely excluding the carrying handle/antenna overhang.

Width18cm7.09inOur conversion from 18 cm. The manufacturer does not state an imperial figure itself, so the conversion has no source of its own.A

NoteOverall body width including hip mounts (matches the bracketed 180 mm figure in the detailed body-parameters table, i.e. body plus hips).

Height14.3cm5.63inOur conversion from 14.3 cm. The manufacturer does not state an imperial figure itself, so the conversion has no source of its own.A

NoteOverall body height.

Degrees of freedom12DoFA

NoteTwelve actuated degrees of freedom, three per leg (hip RX, hip RY, knee RY), each driven by an electric motor with a position-sensing encoder.

Payload, walkingnot stated
Payload, standingnot stated
Max speednot stated
Max slopenot stated
Single obstaclenot stated
Stair step, continuousnot stated
IP ratingnot stated
Operating temperature, lownot stated
Operating temperature, highnot stated
Power
Battery31.1WhA

CaveatCalculated from the manufacturer-stated 2.1 Ah battery capacity at 14.8 V (4 LiPol cells in series); Boston Dynamics does not state a Wh figure directly (2.1 Ah x 14.8 V = 31.08 Wh).

Runtimeapproximately 30minWarning: load condition not statedA

CaveatApproximate continuous operation time on internal batteries before recharging; no additional payload specified.

Hot-swap batterynot stated
Charge timenot stated
Docking stationnot stated
Sensing and autonomy
LiDARnot stated
CamerasnoA

CaveatThe manual's exhaustive electrical-overview list of onboard I/O (power, IMU, proximity sensor) does not include any camera; visual tracking of the robot's pose was instead handled externally by a room-based Vicon motion-capture rig, not an onboard camera.

Onboard computex86 architecture, 266 MHz CPU with 128 MB RAM; onboard 802.11b wireless EthernetA

NoteOnboard embedded PC handling sensing, joint servo control and wireless communication with the host computer.

ROS 2noA

CaveatRobot Operating System 2 did not exist when this 2006 platform was built; control runs through a proprietary Boston Dynamics C++ API instead.

SDK languagesC++A

NoteUser control programs are written in C++ against the proprietary LittleDog API.

Autonomy levelNo built-in autonomous behavior; a bare research platform for user-supplied control software (motor learning, dynamic control, rough-terrain locomotion algorithms) run on an external host computer.A

NoteDesigned as a common experimental platform for comparing algorithms across research teams, not a finished autonomous product.

Payload and expansion
Mounting interfacenot stated
Power outnot stated
Data portsRS232 USB Analog/Digital I/O VGA Keyboard EthernetA

CaveatPorts listed are on the Host computer's CPU board, not on the robot body itself, which communicates only via 802.11b wireless.

Commercial
Indicative pricenot stated
EU
CE statednot stated

Records only what the manufacturer states regarding CE marking.

FCC statednot stated
UL statednot stated
CCC statednot stated

Stair step and payload each exist in two variants. Only compare fields with the same label.

Notes

  • A small four-legged robot built for DARPA's Learning Locomotion program, used by university teams including Stanford, CMU, USC and MIT from about 2006 to 2010.
  • About a dozen identical units, each with a common software API and a motion-capture rig, were distributed to research teams so results could be compared directly.

The manufacturer’s own page

The manufacturer’s original product page for this model.

Open the manufacturer’s page for LittleDog

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cga/bdi/LittleDog_User_Guide_V1.0.0.pdf

See every model from Boston Dynamics

Sources

One line per source, not per figure: a source has one retrieval date. The letter beside a figure points to the line it came from.