Imitating nature is never easy. Even its most simple processes can prove to be very hard for scientists and engineers to duplicate. But nature seems to provide Kåre Halvorsen, a Norwegian engineer, with a lot of inspiration for his work in robotics. Kåre Halvorsen, a.k.a. Zenta, has worked on a robot inspired by ants, and now he is expanding his genius in his MorpHex Project.
His new creation resembles a crab crossed with an armadillo. The shell of the robot is made from curved polycarbonate panels each controlled by a motor. The panels and their 25 servo motor give this hexapod RC robot, the ability to walk and dance the way you would expect a crab to do so. When all the panels are pulled in towards the center of the robot, the shapes of these panels reveal they are sections of a sphere, and MorpHex rolls into a ball like an armadillo.
The project started back in December of 2010 all based on a plastic globe. See the Hexapod robot project board.
Halvorsen has not made the robot capable of rolling but does intend to. Still, at this stage, MorpHex is capable of putting on a mesmerizing show. It is an elegant blend of mechanical and electrical design.
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