An iPhone Controlled Robot [Video]

A video demonstration of Walky, an operating method for a bipedal walking robot through personalized gestures expression of fingers has been posted on YouTube.

The video shows a small robot being controlled by Multi-touch gestures on the iPhone. Walky has been developed at the Digital Life Project at the Graduate School of Media Design of the Japanese Keio University.


We propose a novel operating method for a bipedal walking robot through personalized gesture expressions of fingers. Bipedal walking robot mimics the human walking for a certain extend and fingers can be used as analogy to human legs. Moreover, fingers not only have visual resemblance but also can mimic actions of legs such as walking, running, kicking or turning, very easily. We are capturing these finger gestures as the controlling method for a bipedal walking robot. We believe that it provides a very intuitive controlling interface since user does not has to go through a complex learning cycle to understand the instructions. Finger actions are captured in both functionality and speed and transferred to the robot.

[via iPhoneFreakz]