HyQReal is an improved version of HyQ and HyQ2Max, IIT robots that demonstrated a wide repertoire of indoor/outdoor motions ranging from running and jumping to careful walking over rough terrain. for this robot IIT teamed up with MOOG, the world-leader in reliable, high-performance actuation systems for aerospace and motorsport. Besides a complete redesign of the robot, IIT developed control algorithms for intelligent teleoperation. MOOG developed a compact battery-powered hydraulic system to provide HyQReal with power-autonomy. MOOG also further developed their TRL-4 Integrated Servo Actuators (ISA) and brought them onto the market. ISAs are mounted inside the knee joints of HyQReal providing highly reliable and efficient hydraulic actuation. A follow-up project based on the new robot is funded by INAIL, the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work.

HyQ is a quadruped robot that was developed at the Advanced Robotics Department of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT). The robot weighs 80kg, is about 1 meter long and is constructed in aerospace-grade aluminum alloy and stainless steel.

The development of HyQ2Max has been dedicated to maximising strength, robustness and versatility. This meant adding a far larger joint range than previously seen, a huge increase in the available torque in the joints.

MiniHyQ is the lightest and smallest hydraulic quadruped robot that has been built so far. MiniHyQ is a fully torque controlled robot. It has reconfigurable leg configurations. It has wide joint range of motion and an onboard compact power pack. The robot has almost the same leg length as HyQ, but its link segment lengths are 15% less in flex configuration, due to the special isogram knee joint mechanism. Its weight is only 35kg (24kg with an offboard pump unit), which makes it portable by one person. To achieve this lightweight, miniature hydraulic actuators were carefully selected, allowing us to reduce the required pump size inside the torso. By using a hydraulic rotary actuator for the hip and linear actuators with isogram mechanism for the knee joint, a wider range of motion is achieved, allowing a self-righting motion. For the design validation and hardware testing, series of experiments are conducted on MiniHyQ single leg.

Legged robots with arms can potentially replace humans in dangerous and dirty tasks, where vehicles with wheels and tracks cannot go. Some possible application domains are: disaster recovery (such as cleaning-up the Fukushima nuclear power plant), search and rescue, forestry and construction. Traditionally quadrupeds have been limited to load carrying or observation tasks as they have no manipulation ability.