Wang Xingxing, a graduate of Shanghai University, has developed a four-legged robot dog called "Laikago," and hopes to go further than the industry giant Boston Dynamics to push forward commercialization of the robot in the future, Thepaper.cn reported on Oct. 31.
The robot dog, developed by Unitree Robotics, which was established by Wang in 2016, can walk forward, backward, and sideways, and over rough terrain.
Compared with Boston Dynamics' Spotmini released in last June weighing 30 kilograms, "Laikago" only weighs 22 kilograms.
In addition, although both of them are all-electric, Laikago can go two to three hours on a single charge, while Spotmini can go for about 90 minutes.
As for criticism about Laikago's similarity to Spotmini in appearance and performance, Wang said Laikago differs much from Spotmini, no matter in mechanical structure or control system, and they intentionally adopted a different design thought on developing their robot dog.
Wang added that they also applied for patents regarding its mechanical structure and various components and parts.
Moreover, Wang noted that they hope to go further than Boston Dynamics in the future in promoting commercialization of their product, given the latter does not have such intention.
"We will continue to optimize its design and the technologies of our product, which is likely to be used in security and protection, logistics, and also as an intelligent companion," Wang noted.
