Posts Tagged: "Boston Dynamics"

The patent portfolio of Boston Dynamics is small but it does cover some very intriguing innovations in the field. The company holds six patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, two of which protect jumping technologies that may contribute to some functioning of the Sand Flea. U.S. Patent No. 8849451, issued under the title Hopping Robot, protects a robot with a chassis, a motive subsystem that maneuvers the chassis, a hopping actuator including a rearwardly extending foot which is attached to the chassis for launching a robot and a separate leg pivotable to pitch the chassis upward at a selected launch trajectory angle. This technology, developed to overcome issues in robotic components suffering damage when the unit lands, is definitely on display in the Sand Flea video, and diagrams attached to the patent grant confirm this.