The Boston Dynamics company has introduced a new version of his famous robot WildCat.
The Boston Dynamics company has introduced a new version of his famous robot WildCat, which previously was called Cheetah. The updated version of the robot is able to reach speeds of up to 26 km/h and offers incredible maneuverability, but the developers are planning to increase it to 50 km/h. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Maximum Mobility and Manipulation wants to create an effective robot that can move over rough terrain and perform its tasks of shipping, for example, an ammunition or medical supplies to the place of combat operations. Unlike Cheetah needed a tether to stay on the treadmill, WildCat is autonomous robot for field trials.
Despite the fact that WildCat is similar to previous prototype, this is pretty new machine. WildCat is a true predator thanks to a three-section body with movable connections, feet and a new software. The robot will be faster, flexible and more mobile in the future, running at high speed , dodging obstacles, crawl, jump barriers, etc.
The tests demonstrated the enormous potential of new WildCat and identified a number of deficiencies. Thus, the robot is still has problems with braking at high speed and is too noisy. However, engineers solved the problem of achieving an acceptable rate of movement at this stage, and then promised to do the further improvements of their construction.
The the video, provided by Boston Dynamics, shows WildCat’s best performance:
