DailyDirt: Creepy, Crawly Robots

Bleeding Edge

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots that mimic biological organisms can take advantage of centuries (or more) of evolution to perform various tasks. Robot locomotion that cheats off nimble animals could be more adaptable in natural environments — and animal-inspired bots could teach robot designers about how to make robots that are more flexible in uncontrolled conditions (outside of factories). Here are just a few more examples of biomimicry.

• Snake-like robots have been taught to grab onto things like poles and trees. While some are concerned that these snake bots could also learn how to strangle people, these machines actually look like really smart grappling hooks. [url]
• A soft robotic fish swims like the real animal — with the ability to rapidly reverse direction in a fraction of a second, just how real fish try to escape predators. This robofish can’t swim for very long compared to real fish, but a more advanced robofish might be able to infiltrate a school a fish and help observe natural fish behaviors. [url]
• A robot razor clam can burrow deep into packed sand and serve as an anchor. RoboClam could help bury undersea cables and other underwater tasks, and it borrows some moves from real clams to do its job. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: biomimicry, locomotion, roboclam, robofish, robosnake, robots