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  • So this is the Mantis Hex important walking machine.

  • It's a six legged walking machine that was developed for test two things.

  • Really, it was to test whether the software that I developed on smaller machines would scale upto larger machines for impossible industrial application and as a creative engineering project.

  • So trying to cover two things and one, the software on border here was developed, original my much smaller ones, and that was always called the hex engine tech support engine on them.

  • For this larger machine, the hex engine had to evolve quite a lot because it turns out that there are all sorts of issues with the weight of the machine, the way the software note on the work that we're very well on insect size machines.

  • But when the scale got up in the Mass went up, it'll broken parts of the hex engine, as I called it, got completely redeveloped.

  • And there's all sorts of safety features that went into it on also went from a microcontroller.

  • It was at your desk pick controller on.

  • I ended up putting onto a linen embedded system, which is actually a 46 running 100 megahertz with a really cut down Lennox system of boots and seven seconds on that's called the Hex Engine, and that is the core off the control system.

  • The hex engine basically does a lot of the inverse cinematic mass and all of the control algorithms that gate generation and all that stuff on dhe.

  • It talks to six control stations on each leg, which are basically pick processes running P I.

  • D.

  • Loops.

  • And they closed the loop on each leg for each access on each leg.

  • And there will settle a campus hex engines basically sending out what angles.

  • The legs need to be up there just doing the closed loop stuff, and they're also monitoring some of the data, such as the centers on the leg and sending it back to the hex engine.

  • Then there's also an Ethernet network on here, which is talking to a window see user interface on.

  • That's about 25 2nd boot system tractor actually like screens.

  • You get in tractors, which has been reprogrammed for this purpose, and that has all of the information to the driver.

  • So it's like a bird's eye view of the machine.

  • I could see what all the legs doing.

  • I can change configuration.

  • I have your engine control panel if you like sore ribs and flow rate.

  • Oil pressure, that kind of thing.

  • That salon.

  • An Ethernet connection on, in fact, that the reason why it's underneath in that connection and that also also talked to the joysticks in the cab there, actually another campus.

  • But they talk to the window, see machine, the window, see machine or anything it because it was also on WiFi.

  • And you can take all those controls out of the cab on Ronit via WiFi remotely So, basically, the core's running more real time in the user interface is a part of an offline system.

  • It doesn't need to be there.

  • If it crashes, the machine isn't gonna fall apart.

  • Does he worry that it could be remote controlled?

  • No, not really.

  • I mean, you know, it's not the best of security.

  • I could probably up it a bit.

  • It's only quite low level WiFi security, But then someone would have to figure out my protocol that I wrote that goes on top of that to control the machine.

  • So you know, it's only everyone for 15 minutes at a time, if anyone could figure that out.

  • But you know what?

  • I'd shake their hands.

  • So inside the cab here, we've got a joystick on each side and a bunch of buttons, which I don't label up for reasons just to confuse people.

  • Only I know what they do.

  • These on a campus that just talks to this module over here, which is this robust TFT screen touch screen on has a bunch of buttons down the side.

  • And this is my operator driver view panel, if you like s.

  • So this is where I can see everything that's going on the machine.

  • I can select certain modes and I get questions fed up from the hex engine to hear, like, Do you want to do this?

  • Do you want to do that?

  • Are you ready to power up?

  • And so on the left hand side over here, I have another, more basic control panel.

  • So this is our PM flow rate, oil pressure and temperature.

  • So it's basically if this goes down like a still see all of that stuff here, and this also has the big kill switch in the key start.

  • So this is more what the engine control panel of a normal car on this is more of a fancy dashboard version.

  • So this is tethered by Ethan, it down to the hex engine control system, which is around the side.

  • Here we come around the side upon the third driver's chair here.

  • So this is my 46 stack in here, and they can PC.

  • One of four is the modular size on in these really nice, robust cans.

  • And there's two cam buses coming out the bottom here.

  • And then there's the Ethernet connection.

  • It's powered through the campus, connected here.

  • And then there's another connector here, which is a serial connector, and that's going to little I am you measurement system.

  • So I can basically correct the body attitude according to gravity and level the machine.

  • So this is quite a nice little unit, and there's a very convenient little reset button just under here somewhere.

  • So we do a do a soft reset when things aren't going right.

  • Just reached down under the seat.

  • What some Lennox built around must course a long time ago now, but it's basically the whole The whole core was built on a build root system, and it was just stripped down to the bare minimum.

  • And it was I think, that the the process of board in there was by a company called Vortex Think off the top of my head.

  • And they already had, like, a version of stripped down Lennox running.

  • I just took that and stripped it back, further added on some stuff for the campus and things and build it back up from there.

  • I'm sure it's called a vortex board from what I remember, and that was probably based on some kind of Debbie.

  • And based on the initial version, I guess, like a protest.

  • Yeah, I come from the film industry and the creative side of me can't just let it go look, Ascetic Lee, please.

  • I was told to summon today.

  • You know, half of my problem with this is that I couldn't let things go and I could off because it would have been fine.

  • It would've worked fine.

  • I wanted to seal up the hole of the engine bay and stuff like that.

  • And in the end, I run out of time and energy, and actually most people want to see the engine, so it had been silly if I did.

  • But the aesthetics are important to me, but they're not needed to operate.

  • The camp looks really cool, but the whole thing's removable.

  • So you can take the cab and the sea often.

  • Then you could have a different deck layout on there if you wanted to s.

  • Oh, yeah.

  • No, it's, um I don't know what I have to make things look good, but you know what?

  • I know I did have an investor for this project as we did have commercial interest in it.

  • It's the price of ah, house.

  • You know, it's it's not cheap.

  • Andi.

  • I did three years of my own time on this, and I wasn't paid.

  • So those three years at work for me as well, Andi, really.

  • To be honest, though, if you're gonna build something like this, I say properly because if we did do a proper job, But if you did it with a team of proper team of people, I'd say this is 5 to 6 people.

  • And I would say this is 1 to £2 million project.

  • If you did it for a company properly redid it as best we could on a much smaller, much, much smaller budget still in significant significant budget.

  • Much more on behalf of the issue I had with it was trying to do so many things on my own.

  • I had to be the hydraulics expert, Theo, engine, expert software expert, the Tron access expert.

  • And I'm only two of those things.

  • You know the Queen.

  • So it was a really tricky project.

  • What it does at the moment, about one mile now that is limited Maur, but from the mechanical structure than is from the harbor off the machine.

  • I built it to go up to four miles an hour, so I have capacity in the pump and flow rate for four miles an hour.

  • I think it's probably closer to three miles an hour now.

  • I've studied it, but it's actually limited by.

  • There's too much flicks in the legs in this direction.

  • The joint's needed to be much stiffer on the legs up here and down here.

  • We need to make a much bigger, probably twice as big as what you see now and then Maybe if I had that stiffness in the Y axis, as I call it in the switches in a straight line, then we might have bean get up to two mile an hour at least three miles an hour, and that would be the thing.

  • It's not about speed a tour.

  • It's never been about speed.

  • You know, it has a foot pressure when it's standing on six feet, the same as a human foot standing on one foot.

  • So it does very little damage to the terrain.

  • It was never about a speed thing.

  • All they needed was a machine that would cope with rough terrain and have lots of traction in rough terrain.

  • Andi, it's to me.

  • It's speed isn't an issue on that bothers a lot of people.

  • Number one YouTube comment is too slow, but if you don't understand real physics of stuff, so it's pretty much for shows now, I think I mean, we would like to do something else with it.

  • I'd love to move it on to a company or a museum or something, or that I'd be happy for a museum to take it if they had the right money.

  • The problem is now that obviously it's, you know it's an aging machine is five years old now, on at least a lot of thinking to keep it going.

  • So to sell it to someone as a work and entity would be quite tricky because obviously, you know someone's gonna maintain it every time I get it out.

  • There's something he's adjusting, so I don't know what the future will be.

  • So it goes on trailer.

  • That trailer over there, heart of the whole design process was how we gonna move it around.

  • And so we built it in a way that front legs fold in these middle legs.

  • Fold right the way back flat to the body.

  • They have an extra range of motion on them.

  • It's basically lifts itself above the trailer.

  • You drive the trailer on, believing it drops itself back on and folds up.

  • Technique speaking.

  • No listing gear required.

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  • Figure that out.

  • Once you get inside, it's pretty hard to confuse them for a working time and get this.

So this is the Mantis Hex important walking machine.

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