Cassie’s two-legged robot set a Guinness world record in the 100-meter sprint

If you think fast two-legged robots are still fiction, you haven’t seen Cassie yet. This machine has two limbs that bend like an ostrich and can not only walk confidently, but also run very fast. Recently, the brainchild of Agility Robotics set a real accomplishment in running and joined the ranks of the Guinness Book of World Records heroes. Cassie covered the 100 meter distance in 24.73 seconds!

The robot was born as a prototype platform, developed with the support of specialists from the University of Oregon in 2017. All this time the developers have been working on its improvement. In 2021, Cassie competed in the 5,000-meter run and managed to do it in 53 minutes. Preparing for the recently set record required a radical readjustment and some changes in the design, but the engineers successfully coped with the difficulties.

They had to spend a lot of time tracking the mechanics of the robot’s movements. In addition, Cassie had to not only run the distance, but also start and finish the movement in a standing position. Two separate neural networks were responsible for each of these processes. We had to “teach” them to work together, complementing each other.

Cassie’s times may not impress everyone. But one should understand that this is only a “trial run. In the near future, the result will undoubtedly be improved. So far people run faster, but in a few years the robot will be able to run a hundred meters faster than the famous champions.