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'Air Hopper' Robot Grasshopper
This Air Hopper robot is a prototype created at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The intent is to create a robot that is able to handle difficult, uneven terrain with some measure of robotic aplomb.
(Air Hopper )
The Air Hopper uses an air cylinder to achieve some height; it can apparently jump as much as 70 centimeters forward and 40 centimeters high. As shown above, the Air Hopper 129cm long, stands 52.2cm tall and weighs 32.4kg.
DARPA is also working on a hopping robot - the precision urban hopper.
The only hopping robot that I can recall in science fiction is quite different in structure. I'm thinking of 1994 novel Heavy Weather; Bruce Sterling wrote about a device called a "dope mule robot:"
It was crossing the hills with vast, unerring, twenty-meter leaps. A squat metal sphere, painted in ragged patches of dun and olive drab. It had a single thick, pistoning metal leg...
Here are some jumping leaping robot links. Hop to it!
- Jollbot Robot Ball Jumps, Bounces And Rolls
Jollbot presents a unique solution to the problem of navigating rough terrain here on Earth - and on other planets. With video. - Prototype Jockey-Ridden Hopping Robot
Expensive and uncooperative animals to be phased out in favor of hopping robots. With video. - Hopping Robot Sets Record
Watch the "grasshopper robot" do its stuff in the video.
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