This Video of a Cyborg Quadriped Will Have You Gasping in Terror

Screengrab from the WildCat video from Boston Dynamics.

This is both wonderful and terrifying. A DARPA-funded four-legged robot named WildCat is being developed by a company called Boston Dynamics (tagline of “Changing Your Idea of What Robots Can Do”). They’ve previously developed a humanoid capable of walking across multiple terrains called Atlas, and the scarily-fast Cheetah which set a new land-speed record for legged robots. But the WildCat is a brand new robot created to run fast on all types of terrain, and so far its top speed has been about 16 mph on flat terrain using both bounding and galloping gaits.

The video, released yesterday, shows WildCat’s best performance so far. Don’t let the sound fool you — yes, it does sound like a weed-whacker. But as soon as it raises up off its haunches, you know you’re doomed.

I’ve been trying to figure out what sci-fi equivalent might describe it best: the Terminator’s pet? A lethal, non-fuzzy Daggit from Battlestar Galactica? An AT-AT Walker on speed?

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At any rate … Yikes!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/