The AMBER Lab has long been focused on "human-inspired" robotic walking. The researchers collect data from humans and then analyse the constraints bestowed by our muscles and bones. These advantages and flaws are then applied to its robotic designs and controllers, effectively replicating how we move around. The work is fascinating not only for the field of robotics, but also the team's other specialism -- prosthetics. Robotic limbs that can move like their human counterparts could, in the future, prove valuable for amputees and other users with limited mobility.

An application in prosthetics is certainly easier to sell to the public. Alphabet, for instance, is trying to sell Boston Dynamics -- a team that's built some truly terrifying and impressive robots -- after its PR team expressed concerns with humanoid robotics and how it could affect people's perception of the company. "There's excitement from the tech press, but we're also starting to see some negative threads about it being terrifying, ready to take humans' jobs," Courtney Hohne, a director of communications at Google reportedly wrote in an internal email.

It seems marketing the technology can be just as difficult as building it.