Mini cheetah is the first four legged robot

Mini cheetah is the first four-legged robot

Mini cheetah is the first four legged robot MIT’s new mini cheetah robot is springy and light on its feet, with a range of motion that rivals a champion gymnast. The four-legged powerpack can bend and swing its legs wide, enabling it to walk either right-side-up or upside down. The robot can also trot over uneven terrain about twice as fast as an average person’s walking speed.

Weighing in at just 20 pounds — lighter than some Thanksgiving turkeys — the limber quadruped is no pushover: When kicked to the ground, the robot can quickly right itself with a swift, kung-fu-like swing of its elbows.

Perhaps most impressive is its ability to perform a 360-degree backflip from a standing position. Researchers claim the mini cheetah is designed to be “virtually indestructible,” recovering with little damage, even if a backflip ends in a spill.

In the event that a limb or motor does break, the mini cheetah is designed with modularity in mind Each of the robot’s legs is powered by three identical, low-cost electric motors that the researchers engineered using off-the-shelf parts. Each motor can easily be swapped out for a new one.

“A big part of why we built this robot is that it makes it so easy to experiment and just try crazy things, because the robot is super robust and doesn’t break easily, and if it does break, it’s easy and not very expensive to fix,” says Katz, who worked on the robot in the lab of Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering.

ORIGINAL LINK:
http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-mini-cheetah-first-four-legged-robot-to-backflip-0304