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Video: MIT's robot cheetah unleashed

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Modeled after the fastest land animal on Earth, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's latest update to its robotic cheetah put it one step closer to becoming one of the fastest robo-animals out there.

Funded partly by a military defense agency, MIT researchers began the project in 2013 to compare its running capabilities with the way many world-class sprinters run. They programmed each leg to exert the same amount of force needed for the whole cat to maintain a constant speed.

The current prototype has come a long way from its early days when it had to be leashed. But now it's able to walk — and jump — freely.

Find out more with this Newsy video.