Engineering and robotics design company Boston Dynamics, in collaboration with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and US Marine Corps, has long been developing a four-legged, autonomous military robot named Legged Squad Support System (LS3) (Nick name AlphaDog). It can walk 20 miles with 400 pounds on it back.
The LS3 robot, aka AlphaDog, weighs 800 pounds. It can move autonomously. It understands voice commands given by human. It has a camera sensor system that provides the “eyes” to make smart decisions while passing through wild terrains. In fact, the sensors allow the dog to follow a human leader while avoiding obstacles in the terrain.
The robot can carry up to 400 pounds (180 kilogram) load. And, it is capable of walking 20 miles (30 kilometers) at a stretch without taking a single pause. It is capable of running at 5 miles per hour speed across rough terrains. DARPA has made a video to demonstrate AlphaDog’s skills.
Here is another video of AlphaDog, when it was in prototype stage and showing its performance in lab.
Source : Boston Dynamics, DARPA
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