A groundbreaking achievement has been made in the development of the “ostrich robot” Cassie. This type of autonomous robot could potentially be used for package delivery, logistics, and household assistance in the future. According to a press release from Oregon State University, the Cassie robot, developed by scientists and students at the Dynamic Robotics Laboratory, has recently achieved a milestone. The robot, which moves upright on two legs like an ostrich, was able to travel a distance of 5 kilometers in 53 minutes on a single battery charge during a recent test run. The robot was built by Agility Robotics, a company affiliated with the university, and was primarily funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), a research division of the US military.
The robot is controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), and its machine learning software was trained using deep reinforcement learning. The robot’s sensors can calibrate themselves without human intervention, allowing it to adapt to different environments. In the future, robots like Cassie could be used for autonomous package delivery, logistics, and household assistance. However, as the test run showed, it will still take several years before they are market-ready. During the test run, the robot had to be uprighted twice and experienced an overheating of its onboard computer, resulting in an accident and a failed 180-degree turn.
Despite these setbacks, the Cassie robot’s achievement is a significant step forward in the development of autonomous robots. With further advancements in AI and robotics technology, it is possible that robots like Cassie could revolutionize the way we live and work in the future. As the technology continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how these robots are integrated into our daily lives and what new possibilities they will bring.
