The Cheetah robot -- that can run and jump -- made its debut this week on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) grounds, where it completed more outdoor experiments. The "feline" athletic robot was first discussed during the summer. Now spectators and its creators can get to see its power and hopefully present more real-world applications.

The Cheetah Robot is its first time stepping out of the lab, the project itself however could not have been completed without the help from the U.S. government. This project, Cheetah 2, and its MIT researchers received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), The Slate reported. DARPA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense that is responsible for the development of new technologies for use by the military.

At the moment this project is still MIT's. The Cheetah-bot can run at 10 mph, and it can jump more than a foot in the air, The Slate reported. The idea for having this robot run free on the campus is to evaluate its performance in more real world environments. With this in mind, the researchers can improve on its design.

A cheetah can quickly ramp up to top speeds with it pumping its legs in tandem and then leaping after a full gallop. Based on this organic idea of the cheetah, the MIT researchers have developed an algorithm for leaping, which has been successfully implemented into their robotic cheetah, MIT News reported. Their cheetah is a sleek, four-legged assemblage of batteries, electric motors and gears. These aforementioned parts weigh as much as the real cheetah.

The robotic cheetah has so far run and leaped across the grass on the campus of MIT's Killian Court. The key to the bounding algorithm is programming each of the robot's legs to put out a certain amount of force within a split second before it touches the ground, MIT News reported. In order to maintain a certain speed, more force must be applied to propel the cheetah robot forward.

The Cheetah 2 researcher, who is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, Sangbae Kim, has hypothesized that this kind of "force-control approach" to robotic running is similar, in principle, to that of how international sprinters race.

Usain Bolt and the cheetah robot. Kim has stated that sprinters, like Bolt, do not cycle their legs fast but that they actually "increase their stride length by pushing downward hard." When they push down at the same time they increase their ground force, and this gives them the ability to "fly" while maintaining the same rhythm and frequency, MIT News reported. The adaptation of this force-based approach could give the cheetah-bot a better handle on rougher terrain.

The cheetah robot is different from other robots. Kim said, "Most robots are sluggish and heavy, and thus they cannot control force in high-speed situations," PC Magazine reported. The cheetah robot stands out because the researchers can actually control the amount of force applied for a very short period of time, while maintaining the ground impact. This makes the cheetah-bot more agile, stable and dynamic.

The applications of the cheetah robot could have it saving lives. Kim's main goal is to use their robot in a disaster situation; for example, the cheetah-bot could help firefighters in a wildfire by carrying water, or extinguishing a fire, Fox News reported.

The cheetah robot is still in its infancy and is a prototype at best. But with more modifications, it could reach their goal.

Kim and the rest of the team -- research scientist Hae-Won Park and graduate student Meng Yee Chuah -- will present their findings of the "bounding algorithm" this month at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Chicago.

You can click here to see a video of the cheetah robot in action.