Trust me, gym rat. Your outrageously badass treadmill workout has nothing on this.
The Pentagon’s far-out research agency, Darpa, has just released a new video of its Cheetah ‘bot — designed to mimic the rapid movements of cheetahs, the speediest animals in nature — absolutely killing it on a laboratory treadmill.
In fact, the ‘bot is running so fast (reaching 18 miles an hour at its peak) that Cheetah actually set a new land speed record, Darpa boasts, for robotic running. The previous record, set in 1989, was a measly 13.1 miles per hour. For comparison’s sake, remember that both of those speeds are much, much faster than any average human jogger. Robo-Cheetah even comes pretty close to trouncing the human world-record holder, Usain Bolt, who clocked an amazing 28 mph during the 100-meter sprint in 2009.
As you can see in the video, the robot’s spine is flexible. That intentional flexion helps Cheetah run rapidly. Boston Dynamics, the company behind Cheetah (not to mention other freaky bio-inspired robots like AlphaDog and Petman) hope the ‘bot will one day sprint as fast as 60 or 70 miles an hour — the pace of a flesh-and-blood cheetah.
Darpa hasn’t specified exactly what Cheetah’s military applications would be. But in addition to high speeds, the agency notes that Cheetah is being designed to “zigzag to chase and evade.” Darpa adds that Cheetah could also be useful for “emergency response, firefighting, advanced agriculture and vehicular travel.”
Next up for the Cheetah ‘bot will be a “free-running” exercise sometime over the next year. That’ll test the freakily fast sprinter off a tether and away from a treadmill. Sounds cool enough. But you know what we’re really hoping to see? A head-to-head with Darpa’s robo-ostrich, which is also being designed to hit hardcore speeds. VIDEO
Posts
