Most vertically agile quadruped robot

The most vertically agile robot is Minitaur, made by Ghost Robotics (USA). This 5-kg (11 lb) four-legged robot, developed by Gavin Keneally and Avik De at Stanford University in 2015, has a vertical agility of 1.12 m/s.

Vertical agility is a measurement of a robot's jumping ability calculated by dividing the height of its jumps by their frequency. Minitaur can jump to a height of 0.48 m every 0.43 seconds, meaning that it jumps a cumulative height of 1.12 m every second.

This level of agility with four legs allows Minitaur to do things that no other quadruped can do — for example, even though it stands just 0.25 m high, it's able to open a full-size door by flipping itself up on to two legs, jumping upwards, and punching the door handle with its leading foot.

Rather than relying on traditional arrangements of gears, springs and sensors in its legs, Minitaur uses relatively simple direct-drive electric motors. This keeps costs down and allows fine adjustment of the spring-like behaviour of the motors using the control software. This one-to-one connection between the motors and the legs also allows them to function as contact sensors at the same time.