It’s not exactly Usain Bolt, but a robot dog just set a new robotic speed record in the 100m, and while it doesn’t run as fast as a human, it could beat a lot of them.
A quadruped robot, specifically, HOUNDdesigned by the Dynamic Robot Design and Control Laboratory of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), has set a new world record by recording the fastest 100 m, evidently, in a race achieved by a robot .
HOUND has demonstrated great agility and speed by achieving a time of 19.87 seconds in the 100 m, at an average pace of 18.12 km/h.
He robot He started from a parked position, and then completed the entire race, stopping after crossing the finish line.
“All of these movements were achieved with a single controller trained in the simulation using reinforcement learning,” he said. Young-Ha Shin, HOUND designer. “To push the limits of the actuator, motor features were incorporated into the simulation to make the environment as close to the real world as possible. In simulation, it can accelerate to even higher speeds, but we haven’t tested it in the real world yet.”
This robot is equipped with very light feet, weighs around 45 kilos, and has a wide range of motion, something achieved by configuring the hip and knee actuator modules in parallel, and supported by a belt-pulley system to transmit the action from the knee to the joint.
This robot dog It can also run at high speed on other surfaces such as grass, climb slopes up to 22° and cross obstacles up to 35 cm high.
“Instant and consistent performance are important characteristics when choosing a motor for dynamic leg locomotion,” explains Young-Ha Shin.
