The latest robot from Stanford University is Doggo, a cute open-source four-legged bot.

Students at Stanford University have welcomed a new addition on their campus: Doggo, a four-legged robot that hopes to find a home in research laboratories around the world.

Doggo has designs similar to those of other small quadruple robots, but what makes it unique is its low cost and accessibility. While comparable robots can cost tens of thousands of dollars, the creators of Doggo – Stanford's Extreme Mobility lab – estimate its total cost at less than $ 3,000. Plus, the design is completely open source, which means everyone can print the plans and build their own Doggo.

"We had seen these other quadruple robots used in research, but they could not be imported into your own lab or used for your own projects," said Nathan Kau, mechanical engineer and head of extreme mobility at a university. . news post. "We wanted Stanford Doggo to be this open source robot that you can build on with a relatively small budget."

Although Doggo is inexpensive to produce, its performance is better than that of more expensive robots, thanks to improvements in the design of its leg mechanism and the use of more efficient engines. It has a higher torque than the Minitaur robot of similar size and shape from Ghost Robotics (which costs more than $ 11,500) and a larger vertical jump capability than MIT's Cheetah 3 robot.

Machines like Doggo are part of what some researchers think is a future robot revolution. Leg robots are becoming more efficient and companies like Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics and Anybotics are beginning to position them as useful tools for tasks such as site surveying, surveillance, security and even the package delivery.

Cheap robotic platforms such as Doggo allow researchers to quickly improve control systems, just as cheap quadcopters have significantly boosted air navigation. At present, Doggo and his ilk are made for universities and laboratories, but in a short time they will interfere in the real world.