Bipedal robots are a fascinating and advanced category of robots designed to mimic human form and locomotion. The development of the bipedal robots is a significant milestone in robotics. However, even the most advanced bipedal robots are susceptible to changes in terrain, obstacle negotiation, payload, and weight distribution, and the ability to recover after stumbles. These problems can be circumvented by introducing thrusters. Thrusters will allow the robot to stabilize on various uneven terrain. The robot can easily avoid obstacles and will be able to recover after stumbling. Harpy is a bipedal robot that has 6 joints and 2 thrusters and serves as a hardware platform for implementing advanced control algorithms. This thesis explores manufacturing harpy hardware such that the overall system can be lightweight and strong. Also, it goes through simulation results to show thruster-assisted walking, and at last, it shows firmware and communication network development which is implemented on actual hardware. vii

A robotic car has broken the world speed record, reaching impressive speeds of 192.2mph (309.3kph). The car, developed by a team from the Politecnico di Milano, called PoliMOVE, is fully autonomous and took to the track on the Space Shuttle airstrip at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre this week. During the test drive, the racecar clocked speeds of 192.2mph (309.3kph), 'This test run was exhilarating, and we are thrilled with the world record, but we're also excited by the fact that this data will be made available to all, and the industry will benefit from our work and learnings,' said Professor Sergio Savaresi, team lead from the Politecnico di Milano. The car, developed by a team from the Politecnico di Milano, called PoliMOVE, is fully autonomous and took to the track on the Space Shuttle airstrip at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre this week The racecar previously took to the track on 7 January, during the Indy Autonomous Challenge in Las Vegas – the first head-to-head race between autonomous cars.