It sounds like sci-fi, but it’s just the latest mad offering from the US government’s long-running experimental X-Plane series.
People of Earth, meet your new robotic overlord: Cujo AKA the Legged Squat Support System (LS3).
Say hello to WildCat, the quadrupedal Cheetah robot created by the collective brains at Boston Dynamics. See WildCat run. Imagine WildCat running after you. The robot can reach speeds of close to 26km/hr, which is without a doubt faster than I can run on a Monday morning.
This robot, ATLAS, has been developed by Boston Dynamics for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The capabilities of this robot are amazing and slightly scary.
Oh, good, more things from the future to terrify me. Boston Dynamics, a Pentagon contractor, has broken the speed record for legged robots, with a new four-legged creation – the Cheetah, which can run at 29 kilometres an hour, far outpacing the 20 km/h record set by MIT in 1989.
Thanks to Hollywood and entertainment media when we think of robots we tend to imagine humanoid machines, sometimes so closely resembling their real-life counterparts that the two are almost indiscernible. Because of that, there’s nothing that can really adequately prepare for this headless robotic monstrosity conjured up by the bright minds at DARPA.
Boston Dynamics, a tech company working under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has released the latest in its BigDog project line – Alpha Dog, an SUV-sized, four-legged robot equipped to carry a little under 200kg in gear over a range of 32km, in harsh conditions. It’s a giant, terrifying, military robot dog. Take a look.