The robot uprising is now wireless

The creation of super batteries, wearable armour plating and augmented strength suits are a double edged sword. While on one hand, it could potentially turn us all into Iron Man, it's also giving rise to the creation of fast, powerful and now wireless robots that will surely one day overthrow us as the dominant species on the planet.

Since we still have a few years left in us though, we might as well entertain ourselves with footage of the second generation of potential man-killers, the now wireless Wildcat (its wired version was termed “Cheetah”), which has shown itself to be capable of over 45 kilometres per hour on a treadmill – faster than even the world's fastest man by quite a margin. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3fmFTtP9g']

While the Wildcat might start out looking rather silly in the above video, just wait until it gets up to speed. That's around 15 MPH, which is about as fast as the average person can sprint when at full speed. And this guy won't get tired either.

The reason that's lower than what was performed in the lab, is down to wind drag and the extra weight of the on-board power supply, which its predecessor didn't have to carry.

Funded by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and created by Boston Dynamics, Wildcat functions like a much lighter weight version of the equipment donkey, Alphadog robot.

KitGuru Says: Remember that you chuckled at this video when version 23 of the wildcat is bearing down on you at 400MPH, looking like Dog from Half Life 2 and cursing its human creators. [Thanks Wired]

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