A two-legged robot inspired by birds can walk, skateboard, fly and balance on a slackline, which is like a loose tightrope. It could potentially become a new tool to monitor infrastructure in hard-to-reach environments.
The robot, named LEONARDO by its creators at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Northeastern University in Boston, is a human-like machine with knee, hip and ankle joints, but rotor blades for arms that give it upward thrust.
LEONARDO is 75 centimetres tall, weighs 2.6 kilograms and walks at up to 20cm per second. It is “the first robot to achieve seamless integration of walking …