Pneumatic Actuators Give Robot Cheetah-Like Acceleration

Electric motors have helped bring legged robots into the mainstream, offering a straightforward and compact way of controlling robotic limbs with all the fancy control features that you need for safe and nimble motion. What you can’t get out of electric motors (more than once, anyway) is the kind of instantaneous power that you need to match the performance of biological muscles. This is why Atlas, arguably the most powerful and dynamic robot out there right now, uses hydraulic actuators—to do a backflip with a human-sized robot, that’s just about the only way of getting the kind of…