MIT unveil the cheetah robot that can run and jump on its own power

Video: It may look like a geeky mess of tangled wires, but it moves just like its namesake

Engineers have revealed a robot that runs on batteries at speeds of more than 10mph, jump 16 inches and gallop for at least 15 minutes while using less power than a microwave.

The robot is called the cheetah, named after the creature that inspired its creation by engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA.

Video of the robotic animal shows a messy mass of wires and circuits on the body of the device, yet attached are four very agile and almost delicate legs that make the instrument move rather smoothly and not as clunky as one would imagine a robot would walk.

The robot weighs 70 pounds, roughly the same size as a female cheetah.

The cheetah robot has powerful and very lightweight motors and an algorithm that determines the amount of force each leg should exert while it is running. That equation helps the robot to keep its balance and maintain its forward momentum.

"This is kind of a Ferrari in the robotics world, like, we have to put all the expensive components and make it really that instinctive," MIT Professor Sangbae Kim told the Associated Press. "That's the only way to get that speed."

Kim hopes the robot will become invaluable to search and rescue operations in hostile environments and prevent humans having to risk their lives in such situations.

The MIT project is being funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They are also funding a similar robot being developed by Boston Dynamics.

The project has been ongoing for the last five years and there have been some hiccups. A recent test run of the cheetah robot came to an early end after the device fell and broke one of its front legs. The problem was quickly solved and a few weeks later the cheetah was running along MIT's campus once more, only to make a dodgy jump and break another leg.

Still, the engineers in charge remain optimistimic.

"In the next 10 years, our goal is we are trying to make this robot to save a life," Kim said.

Additional reporting by the AP.