KAIST'S RAIBO2 QUADRUPED COMPLETES A FULL MARATHON ON ONE BATTERY CHARGE

Summary from the TLDR Hardware newsletter

Legged robots burn energy differently than wheeled ones, constantly working at the joints just to hold body weight up and losing kinetic energy every time a foot strikes the ground, so KAIST's team built RAIBO2 by comprehensively modeling every source of energy loss instead of optimizing pieces in isolation. The gains came from stacking hardware and software fixes: an optimized mechanical structure, a redesigned motor driver circuit that cuts electrical losses in the power-control stage, and a locomotion policy trained via RL specifically to minimize energy dissipation.