Cassie, a robot developed by the Oregon State University Dynamic Robotics Laboratory in the United States, has set a world record for 100-meter sprint by the fastest bipedal robot. On May 11th, 2022, it ran the dash in 24.73 seconds. The Guinness World Record said in a statement that while there are other world records for fast robots, this one is based on standard competitive human tasks. That meant Cassie, like humans, started and finished the sprint in a standing position.
The clip of Cassie’s sprint was shared on Twitter with a caption that read, “Robot World Record: Not sure whether to be inspired or terrified?” And netizens were quick to share their opinions.
“That is the same gait I have when being chased in a dream,” a user wrote while reacting to the video.
Another user commented, “One day we’ll look back and think the signs were all there.”
“Can we make it mandatory that all robot engineers be required to watch the terminator films?” suggested the third user.
Devin Crowley, a graduate student at the Oregon State University, who led the world record attempt said that they had been working to achieve the feat for the past several years. This involved running 5 kilometres and going up and down stairs. “Machine learning approaches have long been used for pattern recognition, such as image recognition, but generating control behaviours for robots is new and different,” he added
The training lasted a week in a simulation environment and lasted the equivalent of a year. The most difficult challenge was getting Cassie to stand on her own, run, and then return to that position without falling.
Alan Fern, an artificial intelligence professor who has worked on the Cassie project, stated that starting and stopping in a standing position was more difficult than running. Taking off and landing are both more difficult than flying an aeroplane. He credited the achievement of this world record to the collaboration of mechanical hardware design and advanced artificial intelligence for hardware control.
