A dog-like robot can open the doors, pass through steep flights of stairs, unload the dishwasher and run at high speed. For the first time, a four-legged robot has implemented the physical feat that avoids the athletic amongst us: a backflip.
The acrobatics reach the Massachusetts Institute of Technology consideration, where researchers have revealed a springy, 20-pound robot that is capable of walking either right-side or upside down.
One of the researchers claims that “the vaguely canine-like machine known as dubbed “Mini Cheetah” is able to run over uneven terrain as fast as the walking speed of an average person.
Benjamin Katz, technical associate in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering has helped in designing the robot claims that the backflip is not useful, where researchers offer to measure the machine’s capabilities.
Benjamin Katz even said that “It is the good stress test of hardware”. “It involves very high torque, power, and acceleration capability, and has a high-speed impact at the end, all of which are very harsh on the robot's mechanical components."
Mini Cheetah is driven by more than 10 electric motors that permit the bending of the machine and swing their leg. Every individual leg of a cheetah is powered by three separate motors that engineers involved to augment the machine’s range of motion and help in changing the direction and make “high-force impacts” instead of breaking their limbs.
According to the researcher, having a generous range of motion and ability to adapt to several surfaces will be the severe components for four-legged robots deployed by humans at some point.
Benjamin Katz claims "Legged robots will have a variety of uses where human or animal-like mobility is necessary (climbing over stairs, rocks, etc.) but it may be unsafe to send a person: search and rescue, inspection, surveillance and so on”.
Recently, Atlas has produced a series of four-legged robots with the names like BigDog, Wildcat and Spot that have the ability to open doors, run nearly more than 20 mph and carry the heavy loads.
An associate professor of mechanical engineering informed MIT news that “Eventually, we are hoping that we could have a robotic dog race through an obstacle course, where each team controls a mini cheetah with different algorithms, and we can see which strategy is more effective”.