As more use cases emerge for robots, there will likely be an increase in the testing of their capabilities.

That’s what researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) demonstrated at the recent International Conference of Robotics and Automation held in Montreal, where its HyQReal quadruped robot pulled a 3,300 kilogram (3.6 ton) airplane for more than 10 meters.

Recently, a pack of 10 quadruped robotic dogs from Boston Dynamics hauled a truck in a parking lot in a similar demonstration of what robots might be capable of doing in the future. However in this test, only a single HyQreal hydraulic quadruped robot was needed to pull the airplane, a Piaggio P180 Avanti, a small passenger airplane with a wingspan of 14 meters.

The HyQReal robot is 1.33 meters long and 90 cm tall and is built with an aluminum roll cage and a skin made of Kevlar, glass fiber and plastic. The feet are made of a special rubber that allows for high traction on the ground while a 48 V battery powers four electric motors connected to four hydraulic pumps. Two onboard computers provide vision through cameras and control, either from remote piloting or eventually autonomous operation.

"Pulling a plane allowed us to demonstrate the robot's strength, power-autonomy and the optimized design,” said Claudio Semini, project leader at IIT's Dynamic Legged Systems lab.

The goal of the demonstration is to create robots that can one day help support humans in emergency scenarios such as disaster response to traverse over rough terrain or to work in the field for agriculture, decommissioning and inspection.

The robot was developed in conjunction with precision control component and systems supplier Moog Inc. Moog developed the hydraulic actuation system including the pump units, smart manifolds, fluid rotary unions and integrated servo actuators (ISA). IIT led the overall development of the robot’s hardware and software including the torso, legs, electronics, hydraulic hoses, fall protections and sensing.