NEW Autonomous RQ-E2 Urban Hunter-Killer "BigDog IV" Robot

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdWENsV6cHw

Boston Dynamics just released a new video of the Big Dog

 What can the robotic dog do?

Have you ever seen a walking robot? Most people will answer yes. But have you ever seen a running robot , a robot walking on steep slopes with 10 cm of snow, or walking on icy road in winter? If you have, then you have seen the BigDog Robot.

The BigDog robot by Boston Dynamics can walk on slopes up to 45 degrees, run at 10 km/h and has a normal speed of 5 km/h (just like a healthy human walking). It can follow the operator or be controlled via a command. But the controls are only for the direction: the robotic dog has to find its own steps and avoid obstacles like tree roots or bricks by itself.

In your body, the muscles and tendons have this compliance, which kind of means they are flexible and can follow the force to absord shocks. Another way to look at this is the Oak and the Reed. Usual robots are like the oaks in way more fragile, whereas the BigDog robot takes the strategy of the reed.