2CommentsThe backflipping Cheetah 3 robot is fast, dynamic, and ultra-lightweight – and when you put nine of them together, they make for a pretty nifty soccer team.
A new video shared to YouTube by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shows nine of the bots dashing through the university’s Killian Court in an organized, militant line, prancing in place, trotting back and forth, and even “playing” football. (In this case, play may be a relative term. Either way, tag us in!)
Each four-legged robot weighs less than 9 kilograms (20 pounds), making it smaller and lighter than its predecessor, the Cheetah 3. The Mini Cheetah was first unveiled by MIT in March when videos showed it righting itself after being kicked to the ground and throwing up a 360-degree backflip from a standing position. MIT engineers say their unique design is “virtually indestructible” and made of Lego-like parts that are inexpensive and unintegrated. If a piece of the robot breaks, it can easily be repaired or replaced with electric motors and off-the-shelf parts.
With 12 mason jar-sized motors operated by a handheld-remote, the Mini Cheetah is capable of trotting over uneven surfaces at an average rate of around 8 kilometers (5 miles) per hour – that’s twice as fast as a normal person can walk.
“The rate at which it can change forces on the ground is really fast,” said lead developer Benjamin Katz, a technical associate in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, in a statement at the time. “When it’s running, its feet are only on the ground for something like 150 milliseconds at a time, during which a computer tells it to increase the force on the foot, then change it to balance, and then decrease that force really fast to lift up. So, it can do really dynamic stuff, like jump in the air with every step, or run with two feet on the ground at a time. Most robots aren’t capable of doing this, so move much slower.”
In March, MIT developers announced their goal was to build 10 mini cheetahs, which the team says they will loan out to other labs for further experimentation.
