Athlete: a robot that is taught to run

Most of the robots that we see in the presentations of various companies are moving very slowly, and the movements are somewhat clumsy or something. Of course, there are advanced robots that can walk normally, and even play the violin, but walking, not to mention running, most robots do poorly. A Japanese engineer decided to solve this problem by creating a running robot Athlete. So far, the results are so-so, but the whole idea is quite interesting.

The fact is that the engineer decided to circumvent the complexity of creating mechanical legs, and simply attached steel elastic plates that, for example, some Paralympians wear. So, athlete Oscar Pistorius, a Paralympic man, was quite successful in using such "legs." It is quite normal, according to Ryuma Riyam, that is the name of the engineer, to use such plates for the robot.

With their help, it will be possible to teach the robot not only to run, but also to jump, and land, and just walk. In fact, so far the robot can take only 4-5 steps, as any person does when using such “legs” for the first time, but the robot is “taught” the tricks of working with the plates. In principle, there is a fairly significant chance of a successful solution to the problem.
')
Unfortunately, as has already been said, only one person is working on all of this - if the whole department of engineers were to help Riyameh to provide it, things would start moving much faster. But now it is already possible to see, especially in a slow-motion version, that the robot moves really “human-like”. He even falls very similarly to a man, so that it seems that he is in pain ...

Hopefully, our robotic athlete can eventually learn to keep balance, and after a while will overcome both the creator and professional athletes in the race.