Don’t judge the book by its cover. The boxy looking Walker 1 (Xingzhe No. 1) – a Chinese robot has claimed its position in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest walk. Developed by Prof. Li Qingdu at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, the robot walked a total distance of 134 Km in about 54 hours. It took cool 3,40,000 steps continuously while consuming just about 0.8 kph power.
The previous record was held by Cornell University’s quadruped robot named ‘Ranger’. The Ranger could do only 65 km in about 30 hours while consuming 0.5 kwh. That’s just half of the distance covered by the Chinese robot. The Walker 1 kept circling a running track between October 24-27 before it went out of juice. It even kept the speed 1.18 times faster than the Ranger.
Prof. Qingdu and his team of engineers began their work on the Walker 1 robot back in November 2014. They introduced the first prototype of their bot in January this year. Prof. Qingdu says that they can now use the technology and processes to make these robots more efficient, reliable as well as durable. He envisions that future robots will help humans do complex tasks that are dangerous and in the areas which are harder for humans to reach.
Only breaking the record wasn’t the only goal for Qingdu’s team. The team researched and implemented new techniques to improve the overall electrical efficiency of their robot. They used several ways to make the robot more dependable and reliable.
In the recent times, we’ve seen lot of research happening in the robotics domain. Google, for example bought Boston Dynamics, the company that specialised in making quadruped robots. It’s not clear what Google’s intentions are, but it’s expected that Google will work on making the robots smarter and more efficient. We’ve even seen a bi-pedal robot named ‘Helios’ from MIT that promises to operate at disaster hit sites.
Robotics enthusiasts might be interested in reading about ‘Self-Destructive Robots’, the Russian robot that mimics Cockroaches, and even the robot that can fly in air as well as swim inside water.
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