Robot Valkyrie walks a curved path without tipping over

It could one day help humans colonize Mars, but for now, the 6-foot 2-inch humanoid is learning how to travel over treacherous terrain. NASA's Valkyrie has demonstrated that it can successfully cross a curved, uneven path in a similar fashion as a human. The robot is equip with a LIDAR sensor, which allows it to'see' the cinder blocks by illuminating them with a pulsed laser light and measuring the reflecting pulses with a sensor in order to calculate the distance between the block and its foot. It could one day help humans colonize Mars, but for now, the 6-foot 2-inch humanoid is learning how to travel over treacherous terrain. NASA's Valkyrie has demonstrated that it can successfully cross a curved, uneven path in a similar fashion as a human Valkyrie is the brainchild of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, which hopes to equip the robot named after the female spirits of Norse mythology to go to the red planet many years before astronauts are able to make the journey, for pre-deployment tasks and to maintain assets on Mars.