Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a robot bug that imitates the way a cockroach moves around on the floor. That may be more than enough to make some people writhe as they stare down at the robot, anticipating its every move. The robot is nearly as tough as a cockroach, so attempts to squash it into oblivion won’t be met with much success. Instead, it will continue moving around. However, researchers developed the robot sized bug for completely different purposes, for search and rescue missions. Their study has been reported on Science Robotics journal.
The insect-like robot looks and moves like a cockroach, but it can mainly be used in search and rescue operations. (Image Credit: UC Berkeley, Stephen McNally)
“Most of the robots at this particular small scale are very fragile. If you step on them, you pretty much destroy the robot,” said Liwei Lin, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley and senior author of a new study that describes the robot. “We found that if we put weight on our robot, it still more or less functions.”
These small-scale robots can mainly be used in search and rescue missions, where they can squeeze into tight areas humans or dogs can’t reach, or in likely cases, where it’s too dangerous for them to traverse in and carry out operations.“For example, if an earthquake happens, it’s very hard for the big machines, or the big dogs, to find life underneath debris, so that’s why we need a small-sized robot that is agile and robust,” said Wu, assistant professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
The tiny robot is made out of a thin sheet of piezoelectric material called polyvinylidene fluoride, known as PVDF. Applying electric voltage to piezoelectric materials makes them unique because it causes the materials to expand or contract. Researchers covered the PVDF in an elastic polymer layer, allowing the sheet to bend instead of expanding or contracting. They also put in a front leg so that when the material bends and straightens under an electric field, the oscillations will push the robot in a forward motion, imitating a leaping frog.
It’s a remarkable robot at the end of the day, even if it does look simple. It has numerous abilities in the long run that can be beneficial, such as darting on the ground at a speed of 20 body lengths per second, which is identical to a cockroach’s speed and has been reported to be the fastest among insect-sized robots. It can also speed through tubes, climb up small slopes and it even has the ability to carry small things, like a stone.
What’s even more impressive is the amount of weight the robot can withstand. Even if it only weighs less than one-tenth of a gram, it can resist damage from weights of up to 60kg, which is 1 million times the weight of the robot.
“People may have experienced that, if you step on the cockroach, you may have to grind it up a little bit. Otherwise, the cockroach may still survive and run away,” Lin said. “Somebody stepping on our robot is applying an extraordinarily large weight, but [the robot] still works, it still functions. So, in that particular sense, it’s very similar to a cockroach.”
It’s also tethered to a thin wire that delivers an electric voltage to the robot, causing the oscillations to move forward. The team is also carrying out experiments by adding in a battery so the robot may be able to move around on its own. They are also adding gas sensors and are adding improvements to the design so it can move around obstacles that may obstruct its path.
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