Scientists continue to glean technological intricacies from nature and overlay them onto robotic kinematics. Engineers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed the latest biomimetic robot based on the form of a velociraptor. This robot is the latest in a series of robots bioengineered by scientists that take their primary functions from examples within natural (albeit prehistoric) world.

In April, German engineers unveiled the BionicKangaroo robot. The Defense Advanced Research Project Administration (DARPA) has revealed multiple versions of robots based on animals, the WildCat, BigDog, and Cheetah.

The robot, dubbed the Raptor, runs on two legs, and is capable of running 46 kilometers per hour (kph), or 28 miles per hour (mph), on a treadmill.

Raptor can run faster than Usain Bolt, Olympic sprinter and the fastest known human, who has a recorded top speed of 44.7kph (27.44 mph). The robot is almost as fast as DARPA’s Cheetah, which can run at 47kph (29.3 mph).

However, unlike Usain Bolt, both Raptor and Cheetah are attached to the treadmill and kept steady by a beam, which also keeps them from running off the treadmill. Neither of the robots are able to run free form without any attachments or support systems.

Raptor weighs 3 kilograms, is a bipedal robot, and its legs are made of lightweight composite material. Raptor also has a tail to give it balance and employs springs as tendons that allow it to run more effectively at higher speeds.

Jongwon Park, a PhD student at KAIST’s Mechatronics, Systems, and Control Laboratory, said that the tail may not look like that of a real velociraptor, but it operates just like one, moving quickly to keep the robot steady while it steps over obstacles. The robot was created by Park, along with colleagues Jinwoo Lee, Jinyi Lee, Kyong-Soo Kim, and Professor Soohyun Kim.

The robot is shown in a video steadily increasing its speed until it reaches 46kph. The researchers also placed obstacles on the treadmill in the video, which the robot managed to evade whilst maintaining speed, due to its tail.