Future Tense

Cheetah Robot Is Now Wireless and Gallivanting on MIT’s Campus

Spotted: A Cheetah 2 in the wild.

Image from MIT.

Have you ever seen a cheetah roaming around a university campus? Because Cheetah 2 is on the move at MIT. It may be a robot, not a wild animal, but it recently stepped out of the lab for the first time ever and started running and jumping around.

The Cheetah 2, which MIT researchers work on through funding from DARPA, can run at 10 mph and can jump more than a foot in the air. By letting it go free rather than just testing it in the lab, researchers are evaluating its performance in real-world environments and working on improving its design. Breakthroughs in the cheetah’s development could be applicable to other autonomous robots or things like prosthetics.

It may not be an animal rights issue to make sure the cheetah has enough outdoor time, but perhaps it’s a robot rights concern?