Meet SALTO: the tiny robot designed not to deliver salty puns on the internet, but rather to jump extremely accurately.
SALTO stands for Saltatorial Locomotion on Terrain Obstacles. Saltatorial is a term used by biologists to refer to animals, specifically insects, that have limbs specialized for leaping.
The monopedal robot is the most agile jumper in the field of robotics, with the ability to clear over a meter in height (approximately 3.3 feet) in a single leap. The team behind designing SALTO noted that it could be used on search-and-rescue missions, jumping over rubble and any other obstacles.
SALTO manages a vertical jumping agility of 1.75 meters per second, putting it ahead of the bullfrog. The second best robot is called Minitaur, and after testing conducted by the team at UC Berkeley, the device cleared 1.1 meters per second.
SALTO stands 26 centimeters tall (10.2 inches), weighs 100 grams, and was designed after the galago, or bush baby. The term means “little night monkey” in Afrikaans and is one of the animal kingdom's greatest jumpers, able to clear more than 2.25 meters in a single leap despite being no bigger than a small cat.
Similar to the galago, SALTO stores energy in its legs as stretchy tendons, and its default position is a tensioned crouch, which allows it to jump instantly without having to wait to power up. Its instant double-jump lets it bounce off of walls, similar to a parkour robot, gaining extra height during the process. Additionally, it has a spinning tail that allows it to control its direction mid-flight.
Check out this video of SALTO:
Source: The Verge
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