Metallic Cheetah by DARPA and Boston Dynamics

Metallic Cheetah(A DARPA and Boston Dynamics project)

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Boston Dynamics have unleashed an amazing robot, a 4 legged metallic robot that runs even faster than the Olympic Champion Usain Bolt.

 

 

Record:

A terrifying legged robot has beaten its own speed record of 18 Mph by running at the top speed of 28.3(45.3 km/h) over 20 meters in a Lab trial. The galloping bot is officially faster than the fastest human - Usain Bolt who reached 27.3 mph (43.9km/h) in 2009, setting the top limit of human speed.

 

 

Designers behind the robot hope to see Cheetah max out at speeds as fast as 70 miles-per-hour. The DARPA’s goal is to create legged robot that don’t sacrifice speed for mobility on rough terrain.

"The robot has a ways to go before it can come close to matching the speeds of its living and breathing cheetah kin (the Cincinnati Zoo's cheetah, Sarah, was recently clocked at 61 mph), but that really isn't the point," DARPA said in its release.

One day, the agency hopes to let Cheetah loose in the natural and man-made environments where defense personnel operate, allowing the robot to contribute to emergency response, humanitarian assistance, and other missions.

DARPA plans to test a prototype in the field next year, pulling Cheetah off of its current treadmill regimen and running it through natural terrain.

Powered by an off-board hydraulic pump, the robot has increased its speed since DARPA last released results in March, thanks to improved control algorithms and a more powerful pump.If this progress isn’t impressive (and frightening) enough, Boston Dynamics also today announced plans to unleash Cheetah from its treadmill tether. Sometime next year, they anticipate unveiling Wildcat, a “free running outdoor Cheetah robot” that can hit those high speeds on myriad types of terrain.

Cheetah, which is one robot in a long line of impressive Pentagon-sponsored robotics feats, has clear military applications, including emergency and disaster response. But DARPA doesn’t seem to be stopping there. Last year, the agency noted that Cheetah robots might also be useful in “advanced agriculture and vehicular travel.”