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SALT LAKE CITY — The same brilliant folks who planted the seeds that grew into the Internet now have another offering to improve the lives, or at least the awesomeness, of all humanity - the world's fastest robotic cheetah.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has taken queues and engineering ideas from the world's fastest land animal and used them to create a (relatively) fast robot with legs. The machine can run along a treadmill at 18 mph, about 5 mph faster than any previous robot.
DARPA said on their website that they created the robot as part of the Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program, whose goal is to overcome the limitations of current robotics technology in the defense realm. Cheap, maneuverable robots on the battlefield provide a real advantage in assisting human warfighters, although this cheetah doesn't yet have a specific military use intended for it, other than to push forward design generally.
The robot also does not operate independently yet. It depends on off-board hydraulics and a stabilizing rod to keep it on the treadmill. But it is advanced enough to exhibit certain features found in some of the world's fastest runners.
Actual cheetahs can run at 70 mph over short distances, and can make short, quick turns in order to chase down agile prey. They accomplish this with a specialized gait and frame, as well as increased capacity for breathing and pumping blood.
While the robot cheetah does not need to move around oxygen in order to move, it does need hydraulics and flexibility.
"The robot increases its stride and running speed by flexing and un-flexing its back on each step, much as an actual cheetah does," the developers said.
Testing of a free-running version is planned for later this year.
The previous record holder for the fastest robot with legs was the Planar Biped, a jaunty MIT robot that hopped more than ran or walked, but could accomplish flips and move up and down stairs. The Planar Biped has held the fastest spot since 1989, peaking at 13.1 mph.
DARPA, in association with the Institute of Human Machine Cognition, is also developing a robot ostrich which it says could eventually be capable of running 50 mph, but right now is running about 20 mph - and only in simulation.
DARPA, previously known as ARPA, is well known for having provided the groundwork for what would later become the Internet through things like ARPANET, NLS, early hypertext and even the mouse.
