Meet The Physicist Who's Building Snake Robots | Popular Science

Meet The Physicist Who's Building Snake Robots | Popular Science: No one has ever studied the complexities of a sidewinder rattlesnake’s movement on sand, its natural substrate. In principle, you can understand how a hummingbird stays aloft or how a shark swims by solving fluid-dynamics equations. We don’t yet have fundamental equations for complex terrain—sand, leaf litter, tree bark. To figure that out, we built giant sandboxes that are equipped with high-speed cameras and can tilt to mimic dunes.

Robot elephant trunk learns motor skills like a baby - tech - 13 March 2014 - New Scientist

Robot elephant trunk learns motor skills like a baby - tech - 13 March 2014 - New Scientist: The design showed that a trunk formed of 3D-printed segments can be controlled by an array of pneumatic artificial muscles...

They used a process called "goal babbling"... the robot remembers what happens to the trunk's position when tiny changes are made to the pressure in the thin pneumatic tubes feeding the artificial muscles. This creates a map that relates the trunk's precise position to the pressures in each tube.

The trunk can now be manually forced into a series of positions and learn to adopt them on command...

3-D Printed Octopus Suckers Help Robots Stick | Octopus Chronicles, Scientific American Blog Network

3-D Printed Octopus Suckers Help Robots Stick | Octopus Chronicles, Scientific American Blog Network: Rather than attempt to replicate the octopus’s very keen sense and control, the researchers designed a self-sealing sucker. Still activated by a central vacuum, these suckers are outfitted with individual movable plugs. The plug automatically seals the suction cup closed if it is not touching anything, and it opens when the suction cup comes into contact with an object, allowing pump-driven suction to start. By focusing the suction action on only those cups that are in direct contact with the desired object, this approach also increases the pressure each of those active cups receives.

To get just the right combination of strength and precision, the researchers have been building their prototypes with the help of a multi-material 3-D printer.

One Per Cent: Artificial muscle for soft robots can bend in sunlight

One Per Cent: Artificial muscle for soft robots can bend in sunlight: When hit with UV light at a wavelength of 365 nanometres it expands, bending and increasing in mass by taking on water. Visible light at a wavelength of 430 nm restores the muscle to its previous form. "The gel absorbs water like an expanding and contracting sponge," says Harada.

The muscles work via the interaction of two chemical compounds in the gel - azobendrine and cyclodextrin - which react differently under different light. The direction in which the gel bends can then be controlled by shining UV and visible light from various angles.

New Scientist TV: Frankenoctopus unveils novel shape-shifting arms

New Scientist TV: Frankenoctopus unveils novel shape-shifting arms: The first prototype, currently on display at the Science Museum in London, has six silicone legs designed for locomotion, while two specialised arms use artificial muscles, motors and sensors to detect and grasp objects. A spring-like structure inside these tentacles, made from a shape-memory alloy, can expand, contract or bend in any direction with changes in temperature.

Cecilia Laschi of Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy, and colleagues control their robot's behaviour via a centralised unit that mimics the central nervous system of an octopus.

Gentle robotic tentacles can pick up flowers

Gentle robotic tentacles can pick up flowers: The tentacle is made from flexible plastic containing three air channels that run along the entire limb. Selectively pumping air into these channels causes the tentacle to bend, allowing it to curl around objects with a light grip.

Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscle - MIT News Office

Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscle - MIT News Office: The group has genetically engineered muscle cells to flex in response to light, and is using the light-sensitive tissue to build highly articulated robots...
The researchers cultured such cells, or myoblasts, genetically modifying them to express a light-activated protein. The group fused myoblasts into long muscle fibers, then shone 20-millisecond pulses of blue light into the dish. They found that the genetically altered fibers responded in spatially specific ways: Small beams of light shone on just one fiber caused only that fiber to contract, while larger beams covering multiple fibers stimulated all those fibers to contract...

Custom Japanese Hobby Robot Somersaults with Servo Tentacles - IEEE Spectrum

Custom Japanese Hobby Robot Somersaults with Servo Tentacles - IEEE Spectrum: Straight from Japan comes this robot called "Metallic Vaio 2012," which has a style of locomotion that we've never seen before. Instead of using arms or legs, it's got a sort of combination of both: two long tentacles made out of chains of servos that it uses to crawl around and rapidly somersault from place to place...
Besides its name, we know that it apparently has 18 degrees of freedom...

Video: This Octobot Walks Using Shape-Memory Alloy Tentacles

Video: This Octobot Walks Using Shape-Memory Alloy Tentacles: The OCTOPUS Project isn’t showering us with details at this point, but via IEEE we know that the larger tentacles at the front are the SMA Arms (for shape-memory alloy) that are manipulated purely by heating the material to change its length--no servo motors or cable assemblies required. The rest are silicone with steel cables down the center that are actuated by arrays of smaller nylon cables.

Squishybots: Soft, bendy and smarter than ever

Squishybots: Soft, bendy and smarter than ever: They were born thanks to a rethink of how we should design intelligent machines - an approach called "morphological computing". Its proponents argue that it is not only a robot's brain that can compute, but its body too. The way a limb, torso, or whisker interacts with its surroundings can be optimised to enhance its computational abilities - and therefore how smart the robot is...


Out of the water, the arm is floppy and helpless. But place it in its tank and something extraordinary happens. Its movement suddenly bears an uncanny resemblance to the reaching motion of an octopus. In fact, it almost looks alive.
And that's the trick. With morphological computing, it's not just the shape and substance of a body that's important, it's also the interaction with its environment that is crucial. It has the dexterity and grip to grab hold of all sorts of different objects placed into its tank. It can also push against the bed in the same way that octopuses use to "walk". And all with relatively little programming.

New Scientist TV: Born to be Viral: Robot octopus shakes your hand

New Scientist TV: Born to be Viral: Robot octopus shakes your hand: The team designed the tentacle by using computer models derived from measurements of real octopuses in the lab. Then they created the artificial limb from soft rubber embedded with artificial muscle fibres, allowing it to flex or stretch when an electric potential is applied. It's also equipped with contact sensors, placed under the surface, that detect an object in its reach...
The researchers also plan to improve the tentacle's sensing system by copying the way receptors in muscles detect the motion or position of a limb. By incorporating this feedback, the arm should grasp objects more precisely.

On Building A Fleshy Robotic Caterpillar--and Why | Popular Science

On Building A Fleshy Robotic Caterpillar--and Why | Popular Science: Our GoQBot can inch around like a caterpillar, but it also has a coiled shape-memory-alloy wire running through it that shrinks in length when it’s heated. We warm it up through a tethered control, the wire shortens, the robot curls, and it rolls away quickly. Right now, the wire is our muscle. But the second stage—and we’re working on this now—is developing technology to grow robots out of organic materials. We want to find a way to grow insect muscles inside a robotic device and to fuel the muscles with sugar and fat.

Robotic Octopus Tentacle Wants to Become Robotic Octopus, Seeks Seven More Tentacles | Popular Science

Robotic Octopus Tentacle Wants to Become Robotic Octopus, Seeks Seven More Tentacles | Popular Science: The tentacle itself is fashioned from a steel cable attached to set of more nylon cables all encased in a silicone skin. It's not totally clear how the tentacle can adjust its tumescence, but we know that using the nylon cables to manipulate the central steel cable, the tentacle can move snakelike around objects and stiffen enough to proved a solid grip.

Make: Online | Biomimetic Octopus Tentacle Manipulator

Make: Online | Biomimetic Octopus Tentacle Manipulator: Fig. 1. (a) Arrangement of the hydrostatic muscles in the octopus tentacle: the longitudinal muscles (L) extend along the whole tentacle length; the transversal muscles (T) connect the external tissues and, when contracted, make the tentacle diameter reduce and the length increase. The external oblique muscles (O) around the whole tentacle allow torsion. The central axis of the arm is occupied by the axial nerve cord (N), which includes both nerve cell bodies and axons, and it is wrapped by medial oblique muscles. (b), (c), (d) Design of the muscular elements of the robotic tentacle: longitudinal muscles (b), transverse muscles (c), and integration in an arm (d).

Short Sharp Science: Robotic elephant trunk could hang with humans

Short Sharp Science: Robotic elephant trunk could hang with humans: "Alongside the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation in Stuttgart, it turned to 3D printing technology to make soft, compliant lightweight trunk segments that can nevertheless be steered by strong, pneumatically-powered artificial muscles hidden deep within.

Festo says its elephant's trunk-inspired limb, dubbed the Bionic Handling Assistant, is peppered with resistance sensors that limit its extension when it senses contact - potentially making it safe for anyone to use and interact with."