One Step Closer To Mech Warrior: World’s Fastest Bipedal Robot
What kind of sci-fi junkies would we be if at a website called Giant Freakin Robot we didn’t keep you guys up to date on the current state of robot technology? Bad bloggers, that’s what. Well we have big news for you from the world of robotics and I’m sure soon enough it’ll turn into big news for the military as well, since, well, all technology gets weaponized.
At the University of Michigan, scientists and robotics students and experts have crafted MABEL, the world’s fastest bipedal robot. We’ve seen those weird Toyota robots that look like walking, violin-playing Corollas, but MABEL is different. According to UM, MABEL jogs at an astonishing 6.8 miles per hour, a feat I can barely manage as an out of shape human. She also possesses the most human gait out of all robots around today spending 40% of the time in the air when at full speed, “like a human” says Jessy Grizzle, professor at UM in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
The video they released is pretty impressive, but unfortunately they have to keep her connected to a beam so she runs in a perfect circle instead of barrelling through a wall. Seeing a robot that’s not computer generated for a film running with such human movements is both frightening and exciting. Take a look after the jump.
A jobbing robot may not initially seem overly impressive, but understanding the way the human body balances its weight and transferring that information to the way a robot moves is incredibly difficult. We have seen robots before that are virtually unable to be knocked over, but never one on two legs. This can only mean one thing for the human race–we are just one step closer to making Mech Warrior a reality. And while we surely would destroy ourselves if the populous was stomping down main street in mech suits outfitted with machine guns and rockets, it’d sure as hell be a fun few days before the Earth dropped into a completely combative state.
