DARPA's Newest Robot Is The Coolest And Most Terrifying Creation Yet

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been working on robots for a long time, but this latest one is a both a healthy dose of scary and cool.

Here are the stats on the robot:

— Near-human anthropometry

— 2 arms, 2 legs, torso, and head

— 28 hydraulically actuated joints with closed-loop position and force control

— On-Board real-time control computer

— Electric power and network tether

— On-board hydraulic pump and thermal management

— Crash protection

— Modular wrists accept 3rd party hands

— Head-Mounted sensor package with Light Detection and Ranging technology, stereo sensors, dedicated sensor electronics and perception algorithms

Now here's a video of some of the robot's evolution, to include attempts to knock it down:

Teams in the Darpa Robotics challenge first had to program the robot to move in a virtual space. Now their next challenge, slated for December, is to program (or "teach") the bot to move in real space.