World's Fastest Robot

Reported December 2007

GOETTINGEN, GERMANY (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Robots are the wave of the future. And nothing is moving there faster than the world's fastest robot -- one that could set the pace for all robots in the future!

But what sets this robot apart from all others? It walks like a human and when it falls … it learns from its mistakes, and corrects itself.

“After two or three times, like a baby, it just learns from mistake and it changes gait and walks up the slope,” Poramate Mannonpong, Ph.D., Computational Neuroscientist at the University of Goettingen in Goettingen, Germany said.

Dr. Manoonpong is the computational neuroscientist behind the Runbot. By using sensors and an infrared eye, this robot can detect a slope on its path and adjust on the spot! It’s created with the same critical joints as a human.

“It has two hip joints, two knee joints, here … and it has a foot contact sensor for each leg.” Dr. Mannonpong said.

Just like in people, sensors make sure the joints are not over-stretched and that the next step is initiated as soon as the foot touches the ground. This technology may someday be used to help humans.

“We hope that in one day, human can walk with artificial leg,” Dr. Mannonpong said.

Speed walking robots started out slowly, at 0.7 leg lengths per second. Now, the Runbot can speed walk at 3.5 leg lengths per second. Compared to its size, that’s almost as fast as a speed walking Olympian. Proving robots are moving us fast towards the future.

The next phase is to make the Runbot freestanding and then work with companies to produce the technology for humans.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Prof. Florentin Woergoetter
Computational Neuroscience
University of Goettingen, Germany
+49 (0) 551 517-6528
purdym@msnotes.wustl.edu
worgott@bccn-goettingen.de

For more information about how computers run robot brains contact:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Inc. IEEE-USA
(202) 785-0017
http://www.ieee.org
ieeeusa@ieee.org

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