Engineers at the IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia have developed a new robot centaur that aids in disaster situation and has one powerful karate chop, according to New Atlas. Centauro is five feet tall and weighs 205 pounds. The robot’s sturdy kick comes from its two arms and four legs.
The team built Centauro with four legs to help it lift and manipulate objects with better balance. The robot can navigate different environments with narrow hallways and climb stairs. Each leg has a powered aluminum wheel shod in a high-friction elastomer material for faster travel on flat grounds. Each leg has six-degrees of freedom with rotating and extending knees and ankles.
The researchers designed the robot’s configuration to handle power tools while the lightweight arms can lift up to 24 pounds. The show stopper is that Centauro can break wooden planks with a well-planned karate chop.