biomimetics

Robert Wood, a Harvard University roboticist has built a robotic fly that actually mimics the flying motion of the living version. He has only recently achieved flight with his contraption. The fly weighs only 60mg and is constructed from carbon fiber and electroactive polymers that change shape with an applied voltage. Potential applications for such a life-like insect are quite obvious. Besides unleashing the fly onto an unaware professor thus livening up his snoozefest of a lecture, DARPA, which is funding the research, probably envisions sending the fly on spy missions. The fly is currently tethered flying only in one direction and is hooked up to an external power supply.

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Japan Science and Technology Agency along with Osaka University have jointly developed a child-like humanoid robot called CB2 (Child-Robot with Biomimetic Body). The robot has several compressed-air actuators that enable life-like motion, 200 tactile sensors built into its silicone skin and an artificial vocal cord that enables it to make childish sounds. The researchers are hoping to use CB2 to learn more about the learning and development process in infants.

We've seen some great examples of biomimetics before. Now, driven by the goal of having tiny robots zip around our bodies carrying out tasks such as delivering drugs, biomimetics is moving to the micro and nanoscale. Researchers from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (Zurich, Switzerland) have been inspired by the way bacteria move around using helical structures called flagella. Professor Nelson and PhD student Dominik Bell have developed a nanocoil that can be driven at 60rpm to potentially propel a microbot to a speed of about 5 microns per second (approximately one human hair-width in about 5 seconds). This may not be Top Gear-worthy speed but it's a great effort to find ways of driving the microbots and nanobots of the future.

While DARPA's recent request may have stirred a lot of new interest in soft-bodied robots, research in this area is already well underway. A team from Tufts University (Medford, MA) was recently awarded $730,000 to research biomimetic technologies for soft-bodied robots. Their research will focus on areas such as the design of artificial muscles and development of advanced materials similar to the skin of flexible animals. Applications for these technologies will include flexible robots for use in medicine, search and rescue and even in the repair of space vehicles. The Tufts team consists of an interesting mix of talent from fields such as biomimetics, biomedical, mechanical and electrical engineering.

If you're an undergraduate aspiring to build robots, dude, stop reading waziwazi right now and apply to be a graduate student at their Biomimetics Devices Laboratory. Do come back and read waziwazi after you've applied though!

Dr. Dennis Hong, founder of Virgina Tech's Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa), has been awarded $400,000 over 5 years by the National Science Foundation to further his research on bio-inspired robotic locomotion. The research on Whole Skin Locomotion is based on the motion exhibited by the unicellular amoeba. Dr. Hong wants to use artificial muscle rather than conventional motors to drive his robots which he says could be used for search and rescue or, in a miniaturized form, to probe through the vessels of the human body. It's great to see such a grant being extended to a researcher in robotics!

RoMeLa was also awarded the Darpa $1m grant to enter it's robotic vehicle, Odin, into this year's much anticipated Urban Challenge.

Wow, research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology looking into the evolutionary transition animals took from water to land have come up with an amazing amphibious robot that looks like a salamander. The robot is able to swim using a wiggling or wavy motion resembling a snake's motion on land. See the video below. The researchers' website has other great videos of the robot in motion.

Biomimetics: mimicing nature

Nature is awe-inspiring. There so much engineering knowledge to be gained from studying biological systems. Take this molecular biologist from UCSB: by studying how a sea sponge can create its intricate glass skeleton, he derived a method of creating thin film semiconductor materials under MUCH milder conditions than currently used. A team from Stanford created Stickybot. It's an amazing gecko-inspired robot that can climb smooth vertical surfaces. It's motion is quite amazing and life-like. No, it does not use suction cups or the venturi effect. It uses directional adhesives on it's toes - something like unidirectional velcro. Be amazed by videos of the bot in action here and here .