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

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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
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