Can you walk 40.5 miles in 30 hours? Well, this robot can!
The Cornell robot, Ranger, set a new world record in May 02 by walking 40.5 miles (~65 kilometers) on a single battery charge without stopping or being touched. This feat happened on the Barton Hall track of Cornell University, and achieved 307.75 laps in 30 hours, 49 minutes and 2 seconds. Its “walk” may look silly, but it actually needed six computers onboard and 10,000 lines of computer code to perform! In terms of efficiency (geek-talk), its cost of transport (COT, energy per unit weight per unit distance) was 0.28 joules per newton-meter. Compare that to a typical human who walks with a COT of about 0.2 (yeah, humans still rule!).
