So the world’s fastest animal and the Terminator had a baby. This bouncing bundle of joy is the DARPA-funded cheetah-monstrosity. It looks all set to crush humanity beneath its heels.
MIT researchers first made headlines with their four-legged bot last September when they announced they had designed a cheetah-inspired machine able to run and jump freely albeit “blind”. That’s right, it could not see us yet. They’ve gone and given it the gift of sight.
It’s now able to “see” and bound over obstacles thrown into its path with ease.
“A running jump is a truly dynamic behavior,” says Sangbae Kim, MIT research team leader and an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “You have to manage balance and energy, and be able to handle impact after landing. Our robot is specifically designed for those highly dynamic behaviors.” That’s right folks, if you try to trip it it’ll just gracefully leap over your trip-wire and get pissed.
And now that it can see, it won’t be long before it can “remember”….
The video clearly shows the four-legged bot hurdling over impediments as tall as 40cm as they are thrown in the path of the galloping beast — all while maintaining a steady 5 mph.
The 70 lb robot uses onboard LIDAR — basically a 2D laser distance sensor — to detect if there is a barrier in its path. It then estimates height and distance and a three-part algorithm works out the optimal position to ensure the bot can clear the obstacle and stick the landing before even leaping into the air.
Kim and the development team hope the cheetah bot could ultimately be of use to the military or provide assistance in disaster relief in the future. Haha, yeah I’m SURE relief agencies need a high-speed robot to chase down disaster-stricken survivors… That’s PROBABLY why the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funds these things…. For humanitarian reasons. If I saw one of those things coming at me in a disaster-scenario, you can bet that my first instinct would be to run- to heck with my broken legs.
Source: CNN
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We should learn how to kill it before they call themselves “Skynet”