Quadruped Robot Sets Guinness World Record With 83-Mile Walk

We've seen robots that can run, jump, do both at the same time, stay upright when pushed, and even birth smaller robots. But now it seems they really are just steps away from world domination. A team in China recently set the Guinness World Record for the longest walk by a quadruped robot, with a distance of 83.28 miles.

The team, led by Professor Li Qingdu at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications' College of Automation, built the robot (Xingzhe No. 1) with four articulated legs and a box for a body containing the circuitry and mechanical components. According to Guinness World Records, the idea was to "study electrical efficiency, increase the length a robot can trek, its reliability, durability, and ability to perform remotely-controlled missions in situations that would be dangerous for humans."

Xingzhe in Chinese means "walker," so the little guy is definitely living up to his name. The record-setting 1405-lap journey took place on an indoor track at the school and took 54 hours and 34 minutes to complete. (Even then, the only thing that stopped the robot was a dead battery.) The previous record was held by a robot at Cornell University, which walked 40.39 continuous miles in 2011.

[h/t Live Science]