WINGED HUMANOID ROBOT PROJECT

By David Santos

In 1984, very excited, I began an engineering/artistic exploration toward winged humanoid robots capable of operation most anywhere- from submarine, to land, to air, to space.

Early on, plausible super machines were conceptually defined, and a long list of critical subsytem experiments were carried to success.

The Manifesto- True Cyborg, a 1987 'zine that detailed three years initial concept and design build work.

These experiments included: Locomotion; flapping wing flight and leg walking/running, Manipulation- arms with dextrous hands, Sensing; including machine vision, sonar, speech input, etc., Control; high level behavior expressed thru actuators, Structures; advanced materials used optimally, Artificial Personae; facial, gestural, spoken, and written expression by computer based avatars, Power/actuation; distribution and application of electric and fluid power. But none of these developmental prototypes was a winged humanoid.

At last, its within a hacker's means to field a decent, if whimsical, prototype. It is the most primitive expression imaginable that meets the definition of a true winged humanoid, yet it goes way beyond normal machine concepts.

In 1989 the precursor concept for ceiling walkers were known as "sky pigs" which were drawn as bloated tick like walkers that soaked up light energy from ceiling fixtures

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