![Photo](/uploads/1/9/9/9/19995093/276755.jpg)
WIth their X-RHex Lite (XRL) robot, the UPenn robotics group devised yet another technique that gives the crawling robot the ability to not only cross gaps with a single jump, but also climb cliffs using single or sequential jumps, or leap a wide gap by taking a running start.
There could be in a close future long jump championships for miniature robots !
By looking to the video below, you may not be amazed by the jump, this certainly due to the ridiculous size of the scene and the lack of abyss, like you are used to see in every Hollywood movie, yet you can scream your outburst of joy as it succeeds its jump !
The XRL is capable of some remarkable feats, such as is shown in the figure above, in which the XRL successfully leaps a 60 cm (24 in) gap by taking a running start. The robot can also perform a 30 cm (12 in) vertical standing jump, make a climbing double leap onto a ledge 29 cm (11.4 in) high, and vertically leap-grab onto a desk 73 cm (29 in) high.
The UPenn team presented the XRL robot at this year's IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation and, in the near-term, aims to find out how to use the XRL's capabilities, and in particular the energy storage in its compliant legs, to enable new forms of acrobatic motion. Such robots seem destined to reach heady heights, particularly in autonomous applications.