Mini Cheetah

A silver four legged robot with balled feet and jointed legs. — Mini Cheetah is part robot, part gymnast. Photo: Bryce Vickmark

Mini Cheetah is a small, agile four-legged robot that can run and do backflips. It is robust and has powerful actuators, allowing researchers to perform experiments and test new controllers without fear of breaking the robot.

Creator

MIT Biomimetic Robotics Lab

Year

2018

Country

United States 🇺🇸

Categories

Research

Features

Invasion of the Mini Cheetahs. Video: MIT Biomimetic Robotics Lab

Did you know?

Mini Cheetah is the first quadruped robot to do a 360-degree backflip.

Two men sit behind a small four legged robot. The scale shows the robot as coming up to their knees while seated. — Behind every great robot are... roboticists! Pictured here are lead developer Benjamin Katz, left, and co-author Jared Di Carlo. Photo: Bryce Vickmark

History

Mini Cheetah was designed by a team led by Sangbae Kim, director of the Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Kim has long been studying dynamic legged locomotion in humanoid robots and quadruped robots. In 2009, his lab unveiled the MIT Cheetah, and in 2013 an upgraded model was shown to run with energy efficiency that could rival that of real running animals. In 2019, they introduced a smaller quadruped, Mini Cheetah, capable of running, jumping, and even doing backflips. The plan was to build a pack of Mini Cheetahs to be used by researchers around the world.

Specs

Overview: Mechanically robust design that can survive high-impact falls and accidents. Large range of motion at each joint allows operation forwards, backwards, or upside-down. High speed, high torque actuators let the robot perform extremely dynamic maneuvers like backflips. Omnidirectional movement with trotting, pronking, bounding, and pacing gaits, plus in-place turning at 5 radians/second.
Status: Ongoing
Year: 2018
Website: biomimetics.mit.edu
Width: 27 cm
Height: 30 cm
Length: 48 cm
Weight: 9 kg
Speed: 8.8 km/h (forwards), 3.6 km/h (sideways)
Sensors: Vectornav VN-100 IMU, hall-effect encoders at each motor
Actuators: Custom modular, low-gear ratio, backdriveable actuators with integrated electronics and high-bandwidth torque control
Degrees of Freedom (DoF): 18 (3 actuated DoF per leg; 6 non-actuated DoF)
Materials: Aluminum, plastic protectors
Compute: UP Board with quad-core Intel Atom processor for locomotion control. ST Microelectronics STM32F4 microcontroller in each actuator for joint-level control at 40 kHz
Software: Linux with CONFIG PREEMPT RT patch
Power: 120-Wh lithium-ion battery for 30 minutes to 2 hours operation, depending on tasks