Hasta La Ideas

Don’t be fooled by the possibly-Cheetos-inspired text treatment…

DARPA’s mission statement conjures MI6’s fictional R&D Department, headed by Q in James Bond films or Lucius Fox’s subterranean lab in The Dark Knight:

DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research bridging the gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use.

In other words, DARPA is more or less tasked with turning science fiction into reality, if their recent viral video of a svelte robot cheetah hitting its stride at an impressive (and weirdly terrifying) 18mph sprint.

That’s a solid 40% increase over the previous record, set by MIT Leg Lab’s Planar Biped back in 1989. (Indeed, the Cheetah was developed less than ten miles away from Cambridge—a half-hour run for the Cheetah—by Boston Dynamics of Waltham, MA ,for DARPA’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program—it should come as no surprise that acronyms figure heavily into their project names.)

The Cheetah’s impressive 3:20 mile is appreciably faster than a human at a clip, though it’s worth noting that Usain Bolt has been clocked at a top speed of 28mph… and the animal for which the robot is named tops out at the oft-cited 70mph mark.

In fact, the biomorphic aspect is paramount: “The robot’s movements are patterned after those of fast-running animals in nature. The robot increases its stride and running speed by flexing and un-flexing its back on each step, much as an actual cheetah does.”

But enough chit-chat, you want to see the effin’ thing in action:

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