The South Korean engineers at the Dynamic Robot Control and Design Laboratory have achieved a groundbreaking feat with their robo-dog 'Hound', making it the fastest four-legged robot in the world that covered a 100-meter sprint race in just 19.87 seconds.
Hound, weighing 45 kg (99 lb), possesses the same weight as an average adult male American bulldog and is equipped with lightweight feet that are specifically designed for sprinting.
Guinness World Records organisation states that the robot managed to complete the sprint with the help of a single motor controller that was trained in simulation through reinforcement learning.
According to Young-Ha Shin, the designer of Hound, the driving actuator's limits were pushed by incorporating motor characteristics into the simulation.
The design was meant to provide a wide range of motion by using a parallel configuration for the hip and knee actuator modules. Additionally, a belt-pulley system was implemented to efficiently transmit the knee actuation to the knee joint, Shin said.