Are robot dogs still the GOAT of robotic animals?

Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot dog better move (or dance) over, because there’s a new GOAT in town — literally. Kawasaki recently unveiled its latest venture into robots that resembles a goat that you can actually ride.

Named Bex, the goat robot is modeled after an ibex, which is a species of wild goat. It even has the horns, which it can light up. Its legs are surprisingly delicate-looking, but that’s because they can fold up and allow the robot to move on wheels in addition to walking. A recent demonstration at the iREX robot trade show in Japan also revealed that Bex isn’t among the fastest of robots, with one viewer commenting, “That’s the slowest mountain goat ever.”


Bex was born out of Kawasaki’s exploration of humanoid robots, which it has been working on since 2015. “Halfway between humanoid robots and wheeled robots, [we] wondered if there was an opportunity,” said Kawasaki’s Masayuki Soube. “That’s why we started developing Bex, a quadruped walking robot. We believe that the walking technology cultivated in the development of humanoid robots can definitely be applied to quadruped walking robots.”