Robots are increasingly looking like living organisms: they wear “skin” on their skulls or move according to biological principles. Now, members of the Yale University Robotics Laboratory have developed a way for robots to move. Soft robots replicate some of the most disturbing things that animals do and insects can achieve this: for example, a reptile that amputates a limb or ants that build bridges by temporarily fusing their bodies.
In a video posted by the lab, a quadruped robot can be seen crawling when a falling rock catches its hind leg. The reversible joint that connects the leg is heated by current, allowing the robot to move. The robot breaks free from its leg and escapes. Although not shown in the video, the limb can also be reattached.
In the second video you can see how a single robot is not able to cross the space between the tables, but Three robots can merge (again, using joints that have been heated and softened by electric current), then they cross space as a single robot.
While these capabilities are not entirely new in the world of robotics (especially modular robotics), existing systems based on in mechanical connectionstonicas and magnets are inherently rYoguided. InnovationeitherThe Yale team’s innovation lies in the joints, created using a material called thermoplastic foam.tobicontinuous statics, together with a polYosticky grouper. This combinationeithern allows the unieithern melt, separate, and then come back together.
Those responsible for this breakthrough, led by Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, described their work in an article titled Autoamputation and interfusion machinespublished in Advanced Materials. They argue that the use of their techniques could lead to “future robots capable of radically changing shape through mass changes and interfusion.” This is an important advance that would allow for greater effectiveness in rescue operations, exploration and even in space environments.