IT’S not the fastest walking robot on the planet, but for its height it is a record breaker. At just 30 centimetres high, RunBot can walk at a speedy 3.5 leg-lengths per second. This beats previous record holder, Spring Flamingo, from MIT, which is four times as tall but manages just 1.4 leg-lengths per second.
Runbot uses a very basic controller that mimics the way human motor neurons control our reflexes, says developer Florentin Wörgötter of the University of Göttingen in Germany. RunBot only senses two things: contact with the ground and forward movement of its legs. When one foot…
