Cornell Ranger Walking Robot

I recently saw a story on the Cornell Ranger robot: Cornell robot sets a record for distance walking [cornell.edu]. From the article:

...the Cornell Ranger robot just kept going and going April 3 when it set an unofficial world record by walking nonstop for 45 laps -- a little over 9 kilometers or 5.6 miles -- around the Barton Hall running track.

As a former researcher in the field of walking robots, I concur that it is quite an accomplishment.

There are plenty of walking robots out there like the Honda Asimo [honda.com], or the Sony robots [google.com], plus the countless others that have never left the laboratory. One of the chief architects behind the Cornell Ranger robot, professor Andy Ruina, is trying to prove a point to the rest of the robotics world -- most roboticists are doing it wrong, and the evidence is in the enormous power consumption of existing robots.

When people walk, they swing their legs freely. It doesn't take an enormous amount of energy to swing your leg into position for the next step, or even to support your body with one leg. But if you look at walking robots today, most of them do the equivalent of tensing up all of their muscles to swing a leg into position for the next step. It is questionable whether these robots will ever become practical to perform every day tasks due to the power consumption.

Ruina's lab is producing robots, such as Ranger, that take advantage of natural dynamics to allow walking with a minimum of energy consumption.