MIT's Cheetah Robot Now Second Fastest Legged Robot
Posted on May 18, 2013
The MIT Cheetah now runs at a speed of 22 km/h (13.67 mph). The robot was developed by the MIT Biomimetic Robotics Lab. Boston Dynamics built a much faster and creepier Cheetah robot for DARPA (see here), but MIT's Cheetah robot runs more efficiently. Neither of the robots yet run tether free.
Automaton says the MIT Cheetah has a cost of transport (COT) of .52. COT is described as power consumption divided by weight times velocity. This is lower than Asimo's COT of 2 and BigDog's COT of 15. Automaton says MIT has plans to reduce the Cheetah bot's efficiency down to .33.
This video shows MIT Cheetah running at 22 km/h and its gait transition from trot to gallop. Take a look: