Walking Truck

student research summary:

Nick C.

Block 8

Walking Truck

The walking truck was created in 1965 by General Electric, and designed by a man named Ralph Mosher. It had the body of a truck, but instead of wheels it had twelve foot legs to move around on. It was an experimental quadruped robot. It worked by the stepping and hand motions of a human through hydraulic valves. The pressure and hydraulic fluid was supplied through an off board system, meaning that it was not on the machine. The walking truck was one of the first machines that incorporated force feedback in it, which means that the operator could feel exactly what was going on. It weighed only 3,000 pounds, and could walk at a speed of five miles per hour. It ran on a 90 horsepower engine, and was able to hold of up to 500 pounds. According to the operators it was exhausting to control, and it could only be operated for a short amount of time. It consumed 50 gallons of hydraulic fluid a minute, which is quite a large amount. Now it sits at the US Army Transportation Museum at Fort Eustis

GE Walking Truck History

By-Nick L.

The walking truck is a human operated machine that roves through land by 4 different legs. This object was created in 1965 by general electric, and designed by a man named Ralph Mosher. The original purpose of the creation was to develop a manned walking machine with arms and legs where other wheeled vehicles might get stuck. In the original plan designs there where supposed to be 12 foot legs with the capability to do 35 mph at the top speed. The robot never reached this goal as the top walking speed was only 5 mph. Also the operator would be able to walk in the cockpit with the robot connected to he or she with the robot following all its movements. Another feature that was planned id the capability of 3 to roam together and carry certain big equipment and people. Many early designs of the walking truck had the operator more in the front than what came out to be as centered. The development of the truck with early testings only included the steel frame with one operator ad the whole truck was stabilized. In later testings later moved outside extra metal bars were added on the outside of the body for stabilization and incasre of falls. Also the whole truck had to be connected to a tube that pumped in gasoline to run the whole truck as gasoline consumption was very high to actual output of the machine. The walking truck created by GE did not include a brain or a program as it was controlled by a human operator inside of the robot. The walking tuck did contain a body though that was made up of steel, aluminum and nails and bolts. The walking truck also did not include a characteristic of robots and this was sensors, since it was human operated the robot did not need any sensors. The walking truck did include actuators which is the ability to move. With the 4 legs and a top speed of 5 mph it did include actuators and the great and almost standard ability to move. The behavior of the walking truck is completely controlled by the human operator so the behavior is verbatim from the operators intended actions. The walking truck never actually saw real war action in its lifetime. This is because that it never really reached the full intended capabilities of what it was intended to do. Like going 35 miles per hour or having 12 foot legs, or even being able to move efficiently while using the least amount of resources. Know the walking truck is memorialized at the U.S Army Transportation Museum at Fort Eustis. It is now painted orange and heavily stabilized because of its age and horrible balancing. GE had a great potential with this product to make it great but just the timing was not correct. With the certain technology at the time GE never really had the availability to make the walking truck the best it could be.