The Chinese have created a robot that runs almost as fast as the fastest person on the planet

Researchers in China have developed a unique running stance for their four-legged robot that allows it to move at significantly higher speeds than similar machines from competitors. The creators say that the robot can run not only faster than most people in the world, but also almost as fast as Usain Bolt, who holds the world speed record.

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Developers say that the new robot, called Black Panther 2.0, could theoretically even outrun the world's fastest humans. The project is being implemented jointly by scientists from robotics startup Mirror Me and the Center for Interdisciplinary Mechanics at Zhejiang University in China, reports Channel 24 with reference to Chinese state media Xinhua.

The robot, which weighs 38 kilograms and is 0.63 meters tall, can run 100 meters in less than 10 seconds. In the video, the team claims that the robot can reach a speed of 10.4 meters per second, just shy of the human world record.

The world record for the 100-meter dash belongs to Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. In 2009, at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, he ran the distance in 9.58 seconds, reaching a top speed of 44.72 kilometers per hour.

To achieve this speed, the researchers equipped the robot with flexible knee joints on each of its four legs, and added reinforced carbon fiber structures to maintain their integrity under the weight of the robot moving at maximum speed. Black Panther 2.0 also uses artificial intelligence to adapt its movement to its environment.

The purpose of such a high speed of the robot is still unclear, but there is no doubt that the Chinese government has already paid attention to this development to adapt it for war purposes.

Other quadruped robots, such as the DEEP Robotics Lynx, have been proposed for security purposes and the inspection of dangerous environments, but this robot develops a maximum speed that is only half the speed of Black Panther 2.0. Analogues from Boston Dynamics are even slower, although they are somewhat larger and much heavier.

Watch a demonstration of the new robot's capabilities: video