When a team of Cornell students put Ranger to work tottering around
the running track it just kept on walking, eventually achieving 45 laps
before its batteries died and the poor thing toppled backwards. This
5.6-mile hike smashed the previous 20-lap record. The kneeless Ranger
is designed to investigate aspects of locomotion so that robot walking
can be improved, and hopefully prosthetics for humans too.
It's designed to use gravity to assist its strides, tipping its feet
to spring off the ground much like our legs do, and the team estimates
it's about as efficient at walking as we are. Honda's Asimo, for
example, uses something like ten times as much energy, or so estimates
the team.
Article Link (Gizmodo)
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