MIT's Cheetah-bot gallops into your post-apocalyptic nightmares

An ongoing robotics project at MIT aiming to recreate the gait of a cheetah is sharing a new video showing off the latest progress. There’s a long way to go before anyone would call it catlike, but it’s impressive nevertheless.

The Biomimetic Robotics Lab at MIT is attempting to create things much like those being made by the more well-known Boston Dynamics, whose creepily realistic robots frequently light up the Internet with worries about machine takeovers.

MIT’s effort is a bit more open, however, and its Web page shows a few of the technologies that makes the cheetah robot possible. A highly efficient leg motor, imitation tendons, and a responsive tail are among the improvements the team has made to allow the motion seen in the video above.

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