Soft autonomous earthworm robot at MIT
August 10, 2012
Earthworms creep along the ground by alternately squeezing and stretching muscles along the length of their bodies, inching forward with each wave of contractions. Snails and sea cucumbers also use this mechanism, called peristalsis, to get around, and our own gastrointestinal tracts operate by a similar action, squeezing muscles along the esophagus to push food to the stomach.
Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed.
Sangbae Kim, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, says such a soft robot may be useful for navigating rough terrain or squeezing through tight spaces.
Video Source: MIT
Related:
Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthworm
Comments (7)
by Paul
So what happened to the snake??
by Dany
This is a most useful conritubtion to the debate
by Spikosauropod
Something I have noticed about a lot of robots being created now is that their motion is eerily similar to living animals. This seems to happen despite such similarity not being part of their original design parameters. The inventors have deliberately copied the mechanism, but they were not intending to mimic the behavior.
by Editor
Yes, I think it’s probably related to evolution for maximizing speed while minimizing energy expenditure (calories per distance per unit time) via smooth, coordinated motion, which would also hold for machines based on battery charge and other energy sources (joules per distance per unit time).
by GatorALLin
Was thinking “what if” you had hundreds of these mechanical worms to use in Earthquake hit areas to search rubble piles? Maybe you could have them built in with auto mapping and camera tools that can hear noises and crawl toward them to confirm if people still alive under rubble piles? Maybe checking for CO2 or heat signatures or other sensing tricks for humans that could still be alive? Maybe even if they could bring IV lines to them to give nutrients to keep alive until they can be dug out? Would be cool if you had waves of these worms with first worms that map a rubble pile, then have cameras to confirm living victims, then 2nd wave that would bring a lifeline of IV or sensors to monitor health of victim and then allow verbal communication with them and monitoring until the could be dug out or rescued. I loved the snake cameras for this purpose, but those were missing this inchworm like movement and snake cameras are limited by max length. Maybe some combo of the 2 is possible in the future following this design? Great work to copy mother nature….there is no coincidence that nature uses this movement for snakes, worms and other organisms for billions of years.
btw…. I used to own a 26 foot long reticulated python and her natural movement was just amazing. She could swim at very fast speeds when she would fill herself up with air to float and she then had almost no friction against the ground (I almost lost her at a lake one day, but she was dog tame and luckily came back to me on the shore after making a quick trip to the center of the lake). I had her out in a field next to a basketball court and she got over to one of the slick metal poles and was able to climb to the top in under 5 seconds. She made a coil in one direction at the bottom then a 2nd coil at the top going the opposite direction then did an inchworm like movement up the pole and was amazing. I had her as a pet her entire life, so she had never been on a metal pole like surface before, so she had this knowledge of how to go up a pole by instinct. As a tree snake she loved to climb or go as high as possible, so it took me hours to get her back out of the top of the basketball net when she did not want to come down. She weighed 200 pounds and was incredibly strong. I have never seen video of a snake doing this move from anywhere else and my guess is most pet snakes are just too small to be able to do this on a large basketball sized pole. Anyhow I see they are using worms as their base movement, but I was thinking a longer design and if they were to study snakes closer they could add to their list of options for advanced moves they could make, or ways they could overcome obstacles or learn to climb trees, etc.
by John
Mother Nature has no copyright. We can – and should – copy all we want.
by GatorALLin
A few snake like robots already in the works. sample of just 3 videos below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJuNe50uuzk&feature=related
ok this goes up a tree, but not like how I was suggesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VLjDjXzTiU
swimming robot snake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOSK4lVRTFw