The cheetah is the fastest terrestrial animal in the world marked by a special ability to speed up to 60 mph in just several seconds. A technology based on the leg mechanism of this large spotted feline could pave way to special applications in the future.
Such technology is what a group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge used in developing a robotic animal that leaps and bounds like the real cheetah. The cheetah robot has recently been unleashed to take its steps outside.
The robot, its creators simply call "Cheetah," can only run up to 10 miles per hour, which appears to be much slower compared with the speed of the real cheetah but the team of Sangbae Kim, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, who is behind the robotic animal, has given the robot the ability to jump over objects it meets along the way.
The speed of Cheetah could also be further improved so it could run 30 mph, which isn't too far out considering that it has come a long way from being tethered up doing its first treadmill test. The cheetah robot can now run free, able to move without the presence of any wire that is typically used for power supply. The algorithm used by the researchers for the four-legged gear of custom-made electric motors also allows it to be efficient sans creating unnecessary noises that characterize other quadrupled robots.
"Our robot can be silent and as efficient as animals. The only things you hear are the feet hitting the ground," Kim said. "This is kind of a new paradigm where we're controlling force in a highly dynamic situation."
The robot also provides insights on animal locomotion and how this can be used to make robots move with better efficiency, a technology that could emerge in transportation devices and prosthetics that people use. The work on the robotic cheetah is likewise supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the agency of the U.S. Department of Defense tasked to develop new technologies that can be used by the military, which sees potentials in the technology being used for search and rescue operations.
Here is the video of MIT's cheetah in action. In this video demonstration, Cheetah is shown running across the grass lawn's terrain, bounding upwards to show off its new jumping skills clearing obstacles that are about one foot in height.
