Scientists are building robots that can walk on two legs like a toddler. The researchers say the breakthrough will lead to robots with increasingly human characteristics that could one day become the everyday servants depicted for decades in science fiction.
科学家们正在建造能像一个学步的儿童那样用两条腿走路的机器人。研究人员说，这项突破将使机器人具有日益增多的人类特征，以至有朝一日机器人可变成几十年来科学幻想小说中描述的日常仆人。
What makes the robots unique is that they learned to walk on different surfaces without any prior programming information from their inventors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston , Cornell University in New York in the United States and Delft University of Technology in the Netherland.
这种机器人的独特之处是，没有任何预先来自它的发明者--美国波士顿的麻省理工学院，纽约康奈尔大学，荷兰的代尔夫特理工大学—的编程信息，它们就学会在不同的表面上行走。
The robots also walk in the same way as humans by tilting themselves slightly to one side as they pick up one leg to move it in front of the second leg that is simultaneously used to push the machine forward.
机器人也会像人那样行走—通过使它们自身向一侧稍微倾斜，将一条腿抬起并使它移到第二条腿前，同时用第二条腿推动机器前行。
Because walking has to be subtly altered according to the type of surface, the robots have to take the ground on which they stand into account.
因为走路必须精确按地表类型改动，机器人不得不考虑它们所站地表的情况。
