bots IN BRIEF
GREAT GALLOPING GAITS!
Boston Dynamics recently unveiled their newest creation:
WildCat — a totally new quadruped robot based on Cheetah
that untethered reaches speeds up to 25 km/h ( 16 mph).
WildCat is a four-legged robot being developed to run fast
on all types of terrain. So far, WildCat has run at about 16 mph
on flat terrain using bounding and galloping gaits. WildCat is being
developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA's M3
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SNAKES ON A PLANET
SINTEF ICT (Applied Cybernetics), CIRiS (Centre for
Interdisciplinary Research in Space), and NSC (the Norwegian Space
Centre) are cooperating in the SERPEX project which aims at
investigating the feasibility of employing snake robots in future planetary
exploration missions. The project is funded by the ESA (European
Researchers at SINTEF and CIRiS see great potential in the use of
snake robots in space missions involving planetary exploration. A snake
robot can, for instance, work together with a planetary rover through a
tethered connection, and can also act as the manipulator arm of the
rover when it is not crawling freely. The SERPEX project will identify
advantages, disadvantages, possibilities, and challenges related to the use
of such mechanisms in a space mission context.
The long-term motivation behind the project is the development of a robotic propulsion mechanism that can reach and
operate in locations not accessible by existing planetary rovers. The many application areas of snake robots on earth imply
that the technological development of a snake robot for space missions will have strong synergies with related earthbound
applications. Many industries and application areas on earth can both support and make use of the technological elements of
a snake robot developed for space missions.
Find more details at