17th June 2013

A robot that runs like a cat

Thanks to the design of its legs, which faithfully mimic feline morphology, a four-legged "cheetah-cub robot" shares the advantages of its biological model: it is small, light and runs very fast.

During tests, it demonstrated its ability to run nearly seven times its body length in one second. Although not as agile as a real cat, it still has excellent auto-stabilisation characteristics when running at full speed, or over a course that included disturbances such as small steps. In addition, the robot is extremely robust and can be easily assembled from materials that are inexpensive and readily available.

Developed at the Biorobotics Laboratory of Ecole Polytechnique, Switzerland, it appears today in the International Journal of Robotics Research. In the long term, this type of machine, which is still in an experimental stage, could be used in search and rescue missions, or for exploration.

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