Updated-Air Power: Robot Legs Hop, Skip And Jump
Writing by Conner Flynn on Sunday, 30 of September , 2007 at 11:51 pm
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have been hard at work on something new, but they’re not the ones jumping for joy. They leave that up to their new two-legged robot creature, who can actually jump about 50-centimeters high and then land gracefully. It’s actually part of a larger ongoing project that they hope will create humanoids with cat-like reflexes that can assist the elderly when used as caregivers. While robot legs are nothing new, this pair doesn’t rely on electric motors, instead it has air-driven artificial muscles.
I can easily imagine these legs attached to some basketball playing robot torsos in the near future. Right now, it’s no Michael Jordan, but this innovation opens up a lot of possibilities for the robots of tomorrow.
Update: The bot now has a name. It is called Mowgli. Here is a video of it in action.
[Nikkei] VIA [Engadget]
Category: Research
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