Chinese start-up Mirror Me's robot dog outpaces Boston Dynamics' WildCat
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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.
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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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