Robot that can jump twenty-five feet in the air coming to the US military

Boston Dynamics -- which previously made a robot called the BigDog -- has been enlisted by Sandia National Laboratories (a US government-funded lab) and DARPA to make a new, hopping robot. Called the Precision Urban Hopper, the robot's goal will be to be capable of jumping over large obstacles in city combat situations. It will boast one extremely tough leg to assist it, in addition to its four wheels. The Hopper is supposedly going to be able to jump 25 feet in the air once completed. So far, only a very small prototype (pictured above) is finished, but Boston Dynamics is due to present its next model sometime during 2010.

[(Unverified) Posted May 8th 2009 11:44AM]

Am I the only one who thought about tachikomas?

[Freitag Posted May 8th 2009 11:51AM]

No

[chrisbuzby1 Posted May 8th 2009 12:52PM]

Has the military been watching old episodes of Knight Rider...

[KarlB Posted May 8th 2009 11:52AM]

Able to leap single story ranch houses in a single bound!

[kingdom1 Posted May 8th 2009 11:59AM]

It sounds like they're working on making the robots from armored core or virtual on! Maybe gasp...a Gundam?

[bartman Posted May 8th 2009 12:08PM]

Is it smart enough to know not to jump 25 feet in a room with a 20 foot ceiling?

[(Unverified) Posted May 8th 2009 1:01PM]

they'll need this to combat the giant killer spiders coming from Greenland..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/07/armoured_spiders_out_of_greenland/

[(Unverified) Posted May 8th 2009 3:24PM]

wow, awesome!!!

[lammyduck Posted May 8th 2009 5:34PM]

On the bounce, Soldier!

[Stupdazzwhiteboy Posted May 8th 2009 6:19PM]

Time for Robot basket ball

[niclet Posted May 8th 2009 9:43PM]

Hey, I saw that show !