Sprint Running Athlete Robot Revealed

Japanese researcher Ryuma Niiyama's robot is quite literally making strides in the field of robotics. His running robot, named Athlete, can only make three to five steps before falling down, but the bipedal robot's gait is remarkably un-robotic, stemming from a musculoskeletal design that mimics human biology. With some further refinement, Niiyama may just create a robot sprinter that moves with agility and explosive speed of a human runner.

Sprint running of a musculoskeletal Athlete Robot: Biomechanical approach.

- Bio-inspired Design ― Artificial musculoskeletal system with elastic blade foot
- Motor command generated from binarized human EMG and optimization through simulation
- Running five steps with open-loop muscle activation patterns.

[video=youtube;bXqUjiNw8fo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXqUjiNw8fo&feature=player_embedded[/video]