Gizmos & Gadgets: Cassie, a Robot that Walks Like a Velociraptor

February 13, 2017 – Agile Robotics has designed Cassie, a robot that walks on two legs but not like humans. In fact Cassie’s gait resembles that of a Velociraptor, the carnivorous dinosaurs featured in the Jurassic Park movie series. Built using a $1 million U.S. grant from DARPA, the inventors of Cassie at Oregon State University developed a unique form of robot locomotion featuring a knee that flexes backward rather than forward like ours. This leg design mimics that seen in flightless birds like the ostrich, emu and rhea, not to mention us chickens. But it even more evokes the gait and stride of one of the fearsome carnivores of the latter part of the Cretaceous Period, around 75 million years ago. Paleontologists believe Velociraptor, was about the size of the modern day turkey, and could run up to 60 kilometers (40 miles) per hour during short bursts. They suspect the dinosaur hunted in packs.

Cassie, however, is not designed to emulate the ferocious characteristics of its distant dinosaur cousin. The Oregon State team that built it, and have created a spinoff company, Agility Robotics, intend to license the technology for use by companies seeking couriers to ship and deliver packages to places where wheels cannot go.

States Jonathan Hurst, Associate Professor, Oregon State, and Chief Technology Officer at Agility, “robots with legs can go a lot of places that wheels cannot. This will be the key to deliveries that can be made 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by a fleet of autonomous vans that pull up to your curb, and an on-board robot that delivers to your doorstep….It effectively brings efficient automated logistics from state-of-the-art warehouses out and into the rest of the world.”

Currently Cassie is being made available to universities and companies interested in researching and developing the technology further. Future applications beyond delivery and courier services include:

• Military deployment for scouting and mobile sensing in battlefield and disaster locations.
• Telepresence, remote sensing and search and rescue in situations where humans would find it extremely difficult to navigate or reach.

So how does Cassie work?

A combination of software controllers, springs, and servomotors, combined with steering, and flexible feet, all combined in a sealed system capable of working outdoors in rain or snow, Cassie can stand, balance, fall and get up, and stride just like an ostrich or the ancient Velociraptor. States Hurst, “We weren’t trying to duplicate the appearance of an animal, just the techniques it uses to be agile, efficient and robust.” He further comments, “We didn’t care what it looked like….But even though we weren’t trying to mimic the form, what came out on the other end….looked remarkably like an animal leg.”