Some robots might look like humans, but there's one thing that still alludes our future overlords – gait. Sometimes awkward, often slow, many robots have failed to accurately replicate human locomotion.
Now, a team from the AMBER Lab, based at Georgia Tech in the US, in collaboration with SRI International, have created DURUS, a robot that is able to walk two kilometres on just one battery charge. Not only that, but DURUS's gait more closely resembles that of a human than many other robots. And it even wears some pretty cool human shoes.
DURUS' walk is based on the "heel-strike, toe push-off behaviours that play a key role in human locomotion", the team said, which means it appears to walk in a natural, human way, and also allows it to walk faster and more efficiently.
This is in contrast to robots like ATLAS, who use a more flat-footed, hunched-over approach to move around.
Because the technique requires substantial battery power, the hardware and software used by DURUS is still not ready for "real-world applications", but it could be used to better develop robots that can walk just like us.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
