DARPA's Cheetah Robot

Cheetah robot is faster than the fastest human on earth!

Cheetah robot. Usain Bolt is a sprinter of Jamaican descent who is highly considered and widely recognized as the fastest human being in the world. It is believed that no human or robot can beat the speed of this Olympic champion sprinter. But not anymore. Researchers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), have finally launched Cheetah, billed as the fastest robot ever.

According to a report by DARPA, its robot was timed at a remarkable speed of 28.3 mph during a 20 meter split. On the other hand, Usain Bolt, who has won 100 and 200 meter races during the London Olympics of 2012, has been timed at a top speed during a 20 meter split of 27.78 mph. However, the researchers at DARPA noted that the robot ran on a treadmill during the study, which is actually equivalent to a sprint that has been performed with a tail wind of 28.3 mph.

The robot, which has been modeled after Mother Nature’s cheetah, is an inspiring and evocative project. However, the DARPA researchers also noted that their robotics program goal was not to copy nature, but to attempt to understand and engineer into their robots several core capabilities that only living organisms have.

These are the core capabilities that living organisms have been able to maintain over their lifespan, which include efficient locomotion, adaptability to several types of environments, and manipulation of varying objects.

The Cheetah bot replicates several interesting characteristics that one will usually see from real cheetahs. This includes the robot’s ability to stride patterns, both the unflexing and the flexing of the body parts, stability, as well as the placements of limbs. DARPA has stated that the information gained by its researchers through the study of the cheetah and other related research and studies will help them come up with possibilities for an extensive array of robots that will best suit the future missions of the Department of Defense.

The ability of the Cheetah bot to run and move faster than the Olympic champion was a very interesting innovation, given that it is a very crucial milestone for this invention. This is mainly because of the fact that the researchers at DARPA had long wanted to build and develop a robot that has equal speed and agility capabilities to living organisms.