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Bipedal Robot Floats Gently While Walking

This bipedal robot was created by Dennis Hong and Tanaka Yusuke at the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at UCLA. It is composed of helium balloons and articulated legs.

Thomas Edison had a similar idea in mind when he worked with George Parsons Lathrop on In the Deep of Time, published in 1897. He describes a "walking balloon":

...they were in Wisconsin, and stepped off into a "walking balloon", which proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs over a slant of steep upland.

(The Walking Balloon)

This vehicle is a shallow car with small hollow sails of silk above it, containing just enough gas to keep it about thirty feet above ground, assisted by a small electric engine in the centre. From the bottom of the car two long rods or mechanical legs, made of aluminum—the lightest metal known— extended down to the ground, where they are reciprocated at regular intervals by an electrometer, which enables them to imitate the motion of walking, and carry the balloon along at the rate of some fifteen miles an hour. They are not meant for high speed, and can travel only, of course, on prepared routes, but are very convenient in certain places.

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