Who let the dogs out? Chinese start-up Mirror Me's robot outpaces Boston Dynamics' WildCat
During a live telecast on state-owned China Central Television on Sunday, the one-year-old company's robot dog – Black Panther II – completed a distance of 100 metres in 13.17 seconds at an athletics track in Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei province.
Jin Yongbin, a co-founder of Mirror Me, said in an emailed statement to the Post that the robot's peak speed during the race was 9.7 metres per second, outperforming Massachusetts-based Boston Dynamics' WildCat, which had a top speed of about 8.8 metres per second, according to a research paper from India's National Institute of Technology published in 2020 in Ain Shams Engineering Journal.
Black Panther II had achieved a top speed of 10.9 metres per second during an earlier test, Jin added.
Mirror Me's Black Panther robot taking part in a 100-metre race was telecast live on state TV. Photo: CCTV
However, the Guinness World Record is held by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. In 2023, the institute's Hound robot completed a 100-metre race in 19.87 seconds, much slower than the time set by Black Panther II on Sunday.
Jin said Mirror Me would apply to break the Guinness World Record when the 'time is appropriate', adding that his team was currently focused on research and development.
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