 When I was seven years old, I watched the movie Star Wars for the very first time. And on my way back home in the car, I decided to become a robot scientist, and it never changed my mind, and I'm here today. My name is Dennis Hong, I'm a professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, and the founding director of Romella. Science is really a wide field, from one end of the spectrum, from more of the mechanical sciences, mechanical engineering, kinematics design, to the other end of the spectrum, more of the computer science side of artificial intelligence, and anything in between. You really need to know everything to develop a full system. We first tried to generate walking motion just by, you know, almost like a stop motion animation, just creating the motion of legs, and hopefully it's going to walk, and it turns out that that's not the case. Both Charlie and Darwin use a method called ZMP, zero moment point control method. ZMP walking is more like a robot walking, trying to keep my ZMP right under my foot. So as long as you can create a motion that the ZMP is under your foot, or the foot support polygon, then theoretically you're going to be stable. Humans walk in a very different way. First of all, when you walk, you swing your leg, you swing your leg, catch the ball, stand up again, and then you fall forward, and you swing your leg, and your body also swings forward. Now ZMP is probably the most stable way to implement bipedal walking. The problem is, inherently ZMP method can only work on smooth, hard, flat terrain. So the next step in bipedal walking is a good example is our new robot called Sapphire. You probably know the big dog from Boston Dynamics, the very impressive four-legged robot. Think of Sapphire as a two-legged version of the big dog. People when they see our robots because they watch sci-fi movies like the iRobot, and they say, wow, this robot Charlie walking, this is really neat and cool, but why doesn't it jump? Why doesn't it run? Power source is a big problem. The batteries that we use, lithium polymer batteries can, for example, power up Charlie for only about 15 or 20 minutes. Better actuators that mimic biological muscles better. We need more compliance and different way of doing force control. So all of these component technologies need to catch up, be catched up to develop the next generation robotics. In about 10 years, hopefully we'll start to see more of domestic robots that can actually help people in the home. You want these robots to use tools developed for humans. You ask the robot, hey, fetch me a beer from the fridge. You do not want to have a special refrigerator just for the robot. You want the robot to open up the door of the fridge or pick up the phone, use the scissors, all the tools designed for humans. Thus, I believe developing human robots is very important.
 When I was seven years old, I watched the movie Star Wars for the very first time.
 And on my way back home in the car, I decided to become a robot scientist, and it never
 changed my mind, and I'm here today.
 My name is Dennis Hong, I'm a professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, and
 the founding director of Romella.
 Science is really a wide field, from one end of the spectrum, from more of the mechanical
 sciences, mechanical engineering, kinematics design, to the other end of the spectrum,
 more of the computer science side of artificial intelligence, and anything in between.
 You really need to know everything to develop a full system.
 We first tried to generate walking motion just by, you know, almost like a stop motion
 animation, just creating the motion of legs, and hopefully it's going to walk, and it turns
 out that that's not the case.
 Both Charlie and Darwin use a method called ZMP, zero moment point control method.
 ZMP walking is more like a robot walking, trying to keep my ZMP right under my foot.
 So as long as you can create a motion that the ZMP is under your foot, or the foot support
 polygon, then theoretically you're going to be stable.
 Humans walk in a very different way.
 First of all, when you walk, you swing your leg, you swing your leg, catch the ball, stand
 up again, and then you fall forward, and you swing your leg, and your body also swings
 forward.
 Now ZMP is probably the most stable way to implement bipedal walking.
 The problem is, inherently ZMP method can only work on smooth, hard, flat terrain.
 So the next step in bipedal walking is a good example is our new robot called Sapphire.
 You probably know the big dog from Boston Dynamics, the very impressive four-legged
 robot.
 Think of Sapphire as a two-legged version of the big dog.
 People when they see our robots because they watch sci-fi movies like the iRobot, and they
 say, wow, this robot Charlie walking, this is really neat and cool, but why doesn't it
 jump?
 Why doesn't it run?
 Power source is a big problem.
 The batteries that we use, lithium polymer batteries can, for example, power up Charlie
 for only about 15 or 20 minutes.
 Better actuators that mimic biological muscles better.
 We need more compliance and different way of doing force control.
 So all of these component technologies need to catch up, be catched up to develop the
 next generation robotics.
 In about 10 years, hopefully we'll start to see more of domestic robots that can actually
 help people in the home.
 You want these robots to use tools developed for humans.
 You ask the robot, hey, fetch me a beer from the fridge.
 You do not want to have a special refrigerator just for the robot.
 You want the robot to open up the door of the fridge or pick up the phone, use the scissors,
 all the tools designed for humans.
 Thus, I believe developing human robots is very important.