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View Full Version : The new DARPA WildCat Robot



Spiral
10th October 2013, 16:36
The slow-mo of this thing running is impressive.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2013/10/WildCat-660x363.png

Last year when DARPA released video of its new robot designed to replicate the movements (and, eventually, speed) of a cheetah, some of us were creeped out by the machine’s ability to “chase and evade” at the rate of nearly 30 mph.

The only thing reassuring was that the Cheetah was tethered by an electronic leash of cables. Now MIT spinoff Boston Dynamics has released WildCat, the sequel to Cheetah, which can only move at 16 mph at the moment, but can do so while untethered.

Funded by DARPA, WildCat uses a combination of galloping and bounding to move and gain speed, as the video below shows, and can already recover from from stumbles and falls with ease.

It’s still not totally clear what military applications Cheetah or WildCat will have once fully developed (although one guess is to carry military equipment in war zones if it gets a quieter power source), but DARPA has previously said that Cheetah could be used for “emergency response, firefighting, advanced agriculture and vehicular travel.”


http://youtu.be/wE3fmFTtP9g