Video: Meet MIT’s new ‘Mini Cheetah’ robots
“Just a couple of doggies having fun in the park.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6fMV1UPzkg&feature=emb_title
They run, jump, and do backflips — one showoff lands seven in a row.
They hide in piles of leaves and then pop out. They swivel left and right, looking somehow alive.
They even play soccer.
Meet the MIT Biomimetic Robotics Lab’s nine new “Mini Cheetah” robots.
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Something about the way they can’t seem to hold still, at least in this new video, is reminiscent of puppies at doggy daycare — or maybe a group of bugs? It’s difficult to say.
In February, MIT released a video of the Mini Cheetah turning backflips, withstanding kicks, and landing after unexpected falls. “We make mistakes, but Mini Cheetah is built to handle them,” one frame of the video reads. At the time, the the Washington Post reported that each 20-pound machine is powered by 12 electric motors that provide it with a large range of motion. Each of the bot’s legs has its own three motors, which allows it to recover from high-force impacts more quickly than a less limber machine would.
Researchers claim the machine is meant to be “virtually indestructible” and simple to repair if anything were to break.
Lead developer Benjamin Katz told the Post that the range of motion and adaptability of the robot could be useful as humans begin to use this kind of four-legged machine for new purposes.
“Legged robots will have a variety of uses where human or animallike mobility is necessary (climbing over stairs, rocks, etc.) but it may be unsafe to send a person: search and rescue, inspection, surveillance and so on,” Katz said in an email to the paper.
In the newest video, the Mini Cheetahs bounce up and down, knocking one another to the ground. Then they get right back up again.
“Just a couple of doggies having fun in the park,” one commenter wrote. Another wondered whether they could invite the robots to a rave. But some were less enthused by the machines’ cutting-edge abilities.
“Brilliant,” one wrote. “I’ll bookmark this under comedy videos which foretold the end of human civilisation.”
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