MIT engineers have created the most human-like robot for this year’s DARPA robotics competition. The new creation from MIT is a bipedal robot which has human reflexes.

According to MIT researchers, the two-legged robot HERMES has the ability to punch through walls, smash soda cans, karate-chop boards in half and generally wreak havoc.

They further told that the robot will not be performing these actionson its own, instead, the robot is controlled by a human wearing an exoskeleton of wires and motors, which allows his movements to be transferred instantly to HERMES.

HERMES has a unique balance-feedback interface. The interface allows humans to remotely feel the robot's shifting weight and quickly adjust the robot's balance by shifting their own weight.

Without the interface the robot would plunge headfirst into the wall after trying to punch through it.

Joao Ramos, one of the researchers at MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, said in a news release that the processing of images is typically very slow in HERMES due to which it presently faces difficulty of reacting in time. Therefore they would use humans’ natural reflexes and coordination.

“An example is walking, which is just a process of falling and catching yourself. That's something that feels effortless to us, but it's challenging to program into a robot to do it both dynamically and efficiently”, he said.

They want to explore how actually humans can take over complex actions for the robot, said Ramos. The team also hopes that the robot can also be used to deploy at a disaster site, as the robot can explore the area, guided by a human operator from a remote location.