Researchers can learn a lot from a lizard scampering across the hot desert sand or an insect crawling atop a pile of plant litter. Chen Li and colleagues from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta took cues from such creatures and designed a robot that uses six legs to traverse a bed of dry, loose grains.
The robotic design isn't as effective as a lizard's but it can move through sand at a reasonable pace without getting stuck, and it may help to boost the performance of roving and walking robots, such as the Mars rovers, the researchers said. They noted that previous studies of objects moving through air and water have led to improvements of industrial products such as aircraft wings and underwater robots.
"There's only going to be an increasing number of robots running around our planet and others," said Daniel Goldman, a co-author of the report that appears in the 22 March issue of Science. "We'd like to identify principles that allow devices to move effectively under diverse conditions."
Science: New, Off-Road Robot Inspired by Nature
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