(Image source: DARPA )

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

ANCHOR LAUREN GORES

It was already the fastest robot on legs, but Boston Dynamics’ Cheetah recently broke its own speed record — and Usain Bolt’s.

Back in March, the Defense Department-backed robot topped 18 miles per hour. A few upgrades later, and it scampers at 28.3 miles per hour — about a half-mile faster than “The World’s Fastest Man’s” top speed.

And like most of the robots coming from the Boston Dynamics-DARPA partnership, this one got the usual reaction.

“Kinda creepy, looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.” ( Via WFTS )

“It’s a little freaky to think ‘What if we had robotic cheetahs running around?’” ( Via KERO )

“Man, it’s just... with the little spider legs with no feet! Creep you out every time.” ( Via WKMG )

Like DARPA’s other creepy headless robot the AlphaDog , Cheetah is part of a project to improve robot mobility. The goal is to develop machines that can work alongside soldiers in the battlefield and won’t get stuck in tricky terrain.

The agency admits it’s not fair to compare Cheetah to Bolt, since Cheetah is held in place by a balance beam and tethered to its power supply and hydraulics. But that could soon change.

Boston Dynamics already has plans to begin testing a stand-alone model called “Wildcat” next year — and hopes to boost it to 50 miles per hour. (Image source: Boston Dynamics / Wired )

So what kind of battlefield applications can the scurrying robot carry out? A robotics expert gives the BBC his opinion .

“It's going to be used for chasing people across the desert, I would imagine. … But of course if it's used for combat, it would be killing civilians as well as it's not going to be able to discriminate between civilians and soldiers.”

Well, that’s reassuring. Tech writers had plenty of joke material to work with on this story. Gizmodo went with “doom and gloom,” saying if this bot can catch Bolt...

“...it can catch you too. And then kill you. … The robot apocalypse keeps getting nearer and nearer by the day.”

And a writer for Slate advised the Olympian, “Make like Garry Kasparov and go up against a machine.”

No word yet on a man-versus-machine showdown.