VIDEO: US Navy robot dances Gangnam Style, freaks out The Village People

A new humanoid robot about to join the United States Navy has made quite a first impression by making a mean rendition of —what else?— the monster hit "Gangnam Style."

 

Although done in a spirit of fun, the demonstration aimed to highlight the robot's flexibility and capability to maneuver within a navy ship.

 

The robot, dubbed CHARLI-2, is Virginia Tech’s five-foot tall machine whose superb sense of balance the Navy plans to use for firefighting inside a ship, Wired.com reported.  

 

“(By 2013, the Navy will start) making sure it can walk along (a ship's) aisles, and probably by the end of next year, put it in a smoky environment,” Wired.com quoted engineer Dennis Hong of Virginia Tech’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory as saying.

 

And what better way for the robot to show off its balancing skills than to dance to the hit "Gangnam Style". The video has already garnered almost 180,000 likes in the three days since it was uploaded on October 19.

 

But Hong also said that if the robot can do firefighting, it can be programmed as well to do other things "like mopping the deck."

 

“It’s like the Swiss Army knife of robotics,” he added.

 

CHARLI-2 is to be introduced to its human shipmates at an expo in Virginia on October 22, Wired.com said.

 

The robot also comes to the Navy with a pedigree of sorts: it is a repeat champion at the prestigious RoboCup robotics awards in the full-size humanoid category in 2011 and 2012.

 

Meanwhile, Hong has a $3.5-million grant from the Navy to help design CHARLI-2′s successor, the Autonomous Shipboard Humanoid (ASH).

 

Also, the Navy has been experimenting with a different robot Octavia, which has a wheeled chassis, to build a robot that can work with human sailors to fight fires aboard ships.

 

Advanced software

 

Wired.com said what makes CHARLI-2 unique is its advanced software that lets the machine orient itself.

 

Hong designed an algorithm - known as SLAM, or Simultaneous Localization and Mapping - for stabilizing CHARLI-2 even amid unstable conditions.

 

Meanwhile, the upcoming successor to CHARLI-2, ASH, is envisioned to have articulable legs that can be placed inside a protective suit.

 

"CHARLI-2′s son might one day work alongside human sailors to put out shipboard flames. But it remains to be seen if either robot can outcompete those sailors in a Gangnam dance-off," Wired.com said.

 

Hong, however, says, “CHARLI-2 can at least beat Navy sailors in a dance-off doing ‘The Robot.’” Or at least give these guys a run for their money:  

 — TJD, GMA News