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MIT’s Cheetah Robot can Now Autonomously Detect and Jump over Hurdles

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 02 2015, @11:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-stronger-faster-robot dept.

Phoenix666 wrote in with an update on MIT's Cheetah robot:

MIT's biomimetic robotics lab, which last year [editor's note: it was two years ago per above linked MIT announcement] developed a free-running untethered cheetah robot capable of bounding along at 10mph, has now created a new version—Cheetah 2—that can autonomously jump over hurdles.

These aren't just token hurdles, either: the current version of the robot can clear obstacles that are up to 45 centimetres (18 inches) tall while maintaining a steady speed of 5mph (8kph). The 45 centimetre height is about half as tall as the robot itself.

While untethered jumping is already quite an achievement for a biomimetic robot, the way in which Cheetah 2 does it is even more impressive. There isn't a human pushing a "jump" button; Cheetah 2 is autonomous. Using on-board LIDAR, the robot can detect obstacles, estimate the distance to the object, determine the hurdle's height, and then adjust its stride so that it's perfectly placed to jump over.

All of the path-finding, vision, and physics modelling software are running on the robot. So in theory, it could just run around on its own, jumping over hurdles (until its battery pack ran out of juice anyway).

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2015, @11:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2015, @11:54PM (#191346)

    MIT robot, build me so many hurdles for me to jump over, they become insurmountable, and I give up and kill myself.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:16AM (#191370)

    Remember Aaron!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:18AM

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:18AM (#191372) Journal

      This will be used to automate and bureaucratize police killing of "suspects".

      Hunting in a neighborhood near you, soon.

      --
      You're betting on the pantomime horse...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:26AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:26AM (#191375)

        Don't worry, neighbor! Automated killing will happen only in designated warzones like Afghanistan and Detroit.