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Slashdot: Researchers Develop Speedy Soft Robot That's More Robust Than a Cockroach

Researchers Develop Speedy Soft Robot That's More Robust Than a Cockroach
Published on August 01, 2019 at 07:32AM
Researchers from Tsinghua University in China and University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new kind of soft robot that looks like a bent strip of paper, but is able to move at 20 body lengths per second and survive being stomped on. The robot has been presented in the current issue of Science Robotics. IEEE Spectrum reports: This prototype robot measures just 3 centimeters by 1.5 cm. It takes a scanning electron microscope to actually see what the robot is made of -- a thermoplastic layer is sandwiched by palladium-gold electrodes, bonded with adhesive silicone to a structural plastic at the bottom. When an AC voltage (as low as 8 volts but typically about 60 volts) is run through the electrodes, the thermoplastic extends and contracts, causing the robot's back to flex and the little "foot" to shuffle. A complete step cycle takes just 50 milliseconds, yielding a 200 hertz gait. And technically, the robot "runs," since it does have a brief aerial phase. The researchers also put together a prototype with two legs instead of one, which was able to demonstrate a potentially faster galloping gait by spending more time in the air. They suggest that robots like these could be used for "environmental exploration, structural inspection, information reconnaissance, and disaster relief," which are the sorts of things that you suggest that your robot could be used for when you really have no idea what it could be used for. But this work is certainly impressive, with speed and robustness that are largely unmatched by other soft robots. An untethered version seems possible due to the relatively low voltages required to drive the robot, and if they can put some peanut-sized sensors on there as well, practical applications might actually be forthcoming sometime soon.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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