Bipedal robot developed at Oregon State learns to run

Cassie the robot, invented at Oregon State University and produced by OSU spinout company Agility Robotics, has made history by traversing 5 kilometres outdoors in just over 53 minutes. The robot was developed under the direction of robotics professor Jonathan Hurst with a 16-month, $1 million grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. Since Cassie's introduction in 2017, OSU students funded by the National Science Foundation have been exploring machine learning options for the robot. "The Dynamic Robotics Laboratory students in the OSU College of Engineering combined expertise from biomechanics and existing robot control approaches with new machine learning tools," said Hurst, who co-founded Agility in 2017. "This type of holistic approach will enable animal-like levels of performance.