Robotech Cheetah's Mechanical Design Based on Biology

Robotic designer Sangbae Kim, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Biomimetic Robotics Lab has undertaken an ambitious project: Building a lightweight carbon-fiber-foam composite robotic cheetah able to run at a real-life cheetah’s speed of 35 miles per hour.

If Kim can conquer the design and stability challenges using the cheetah as a model for a robot with an extremely flexible backbone to provide extra speed or force to its running motion, he will make robotic history. A previous project that Kim completed while at Stanford—a wall-climbing Stickybot that has foot pads based on a gecko’s feet—is shown in the video above.