https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/05/mits-cheetah-bot-walks-up-debris-littered-stairs-without-visual-sensors/

After making its stage debut at TC Sessions Robotics in Boston last year, the third iteration of MIT’s Cheetah robot is back with some impressive new tricks. Associate Professor Sangbae Kim will officially demonstrate the Cheetah 3’s new capabilities at Madrid’s International Conference on Intelligent Robots in October, but in the meantime, we’ve got a sneak peek via laboratory video.

The “Blind Climb on Stairs” portion starts around 1:48. It’s not exactly graceful, but it’s still probably a lot better than most of could do attempting to walk up a flight a with our eyes closed. Complicating matters are the small pieces of wood littering the steps, approximating some of the non-ideal circumstances the robot will have to grapple with during the search and rescue missions for which it’s designed.