After Boston Dynamic’s Cheetah comes a new robot that also extremely fast, and much more scary. The Raptor is designed from the movements of a more ancient predator, the dinosaur velociraptor. The two-legged beast roamed the lands last around 75 million years ago. Imagine a robotic version roaming the world, a dinosaur revival Jurassic Park style!
Created by a team of scientists from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the robot has carbon composite legs and springs for the Achilles tendons with a tail for balance, changing direction, and maneuvering around obstacles. The tendons help it move without expending as much energy.
Jongwon Park, a PhD student at the Institute, designed the Raptor with his colleagues, Jinwoo Lee, Jinyi Lee, and with Professor Soohyun Kim. They included some key differences from the Cheetah. The Raptor is considerably lighter, weighing only about 6.5 pounds (3 kilograms). Moving at a maximum speed of 28.58 mph, it’s a bit slower than the Cheetah which can reach 29.2 mph. But, it’s still faster than the fastest human.
Work is needed before the prototype can be made to fully run and move independently in outdoor environments, but the day is not far off when we could have dinosaur robots walking, running, and hunting with us—or after us.
