DARPA's Cheetah - fastes legged robot

[twilyth]

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DARPA is quickly becoming the supplier of my nightmares.

As if the monstrous AlphaDog wasn't intimidating enough, it now has a feline friend, the "Cheetah," that will certainly have you running for the hills. Chances are you won't be able to outrun it, though.

Created by Boston Dynamics, Cheetah is allegedly now the fastest legged robot on the planet. DARPA released a video today showing the bot running at various speeds on a laboratory treadmill, ultimately hitting its maximum speed of 18 mph. This breaks the previous land-speed record of 13.1 mph set back in 1989.
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Engineers designed the Cheetah bot by patterning its movements after real fast-running animals, such as its namesake. By flexing and unflexing its spine, the four-legged droid is able to lengthen its stride and increase its running speed.

Back in February 2011 when the robot was first commissioned, Boston Dynamics President Marc Raibert said he saw no reason why the robot couldn't go as fast a real cheetah (up to 70 mph), but he admitted that this would take some time to achieve.

The Cheetah is part of DARPA's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program, which seeks to advance and improve robotic capabilities. Though the agency didn't provide any specific examples, a robot, such as Cheetah, could help in various military applications.

DARPA plans to test a free-running a prototype later this year.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Got a long way to go to catch up with the real deal but very interesting none the less.

 

[Kreij]

Speed is fine, but can it corner like the real deal? If not it's a basically a sitting duck against projectiles (like bullets).

 

[RejZoR]

It's like a muscle car at the moment. Goes like a rocket but doesn't corner too well

 

[erocker]

What a waste of money. *edit: especially for military applications.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I could see major applications for this in combat. For example, mount a grenade launcher on it, jump over a wall or three, get behind enemy lines, and blow them to hell. Not much can hit something that small moving at 18 MPH. It has a lot of military applications.

 

[Flibolito]

The main problem still is in power delivery, can it do 20 mph for 1 hour off the umbilical energy supply?

 

[Inceptor]

Looks like nothing more than a glorified proof of concept. It's a good advancement, mechanically, but without a significant untethered power supply, and the ability to balance (in other words, cornering ability) it's just another addition to engineering knowledge.