DARPA's 'robot cheetah' breaks speed record

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on Monday announced that they had set a new speed record for legged robots.

A press advisory from DARPA’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) project said that their so-called "Cheetah" had reached speeds of up to 18 miles per hour on a treadmill.

The previous record of 13.1 miles per hour was set in 1989.

While the "robot cheetah" is faster than the average human jogger, it still is no match Usain Bolt's sprinting record of almost 28 miles per hour. Real cheetahs, which can reach sustained speeds of up to 75 miles per hour, are known to have the fastest land speed of any living animal.

Watch this video from DARPAtv, broadcast March 5, 2012.

(H/T: The Huffington Post)