Scientists are perfecting a robot cockroach that will be able to navigate through small cracks and other obstacles – almost as well as a real cockroach. It’s called VelociRoach, and it’s one of the latest examples of using animal designs for human technology.
A team from the University of California Berkeley started by studying real discoid cockroaches as they traversed a plastic obstacle course. Discoid cockroaches live on the floor of the rain forest, according to Discovery News , making it imperative for them to get over and around whatever comes their way.
Another big advantage to the insects is their limited brain power. Unlike more sophisticated animals like mice, cockroaches rely on passive mechanisms to navigate complicated environments. Since the tiny robot also lacks an advanced brain, the match is nearly perfect.
Still, the initial designs failed.
The first tiny robots were six-legged and rectangular. And the researchers found that the little robot would get its rectangular body stuck in the grass-like plastic (see the video below).
It was only after the robot designers added a round shell, giving it a more bug-like look, that the little device could get through the obstacles, despite being slightly bigger than a real cockroach at about four inches long and two inches wide.
So, why build and perfect a robot cockroach?
The device is not intended to be a little robot spy like in the movies. According to Reuters , the team hopes their technology could be used for search and rescue efforts.
The team’s leader Chen Li explained that sending robots into debris to search for disaster survivors has always been a challenge.
“It’s very challenging, because with search and rescue if you want to send a robot to find someone on building rubble, often the gaps are smaller than the robots themselves. The majority of the techniques to help robots navigate failed.”
Li added, “Our study is designed to try and understand how animals can go through a cluttered environment and see if we can take inspiration to improve the mobility of a robot.”
As previously reported by the Inquisitr , taking notes from nature is nothing new for robotics. For example, the Navy used tuna as their inspiration for a military robot. The natural swimming motion of a fish doesn’t appear on radar, allowing the Navy to use the device to get up close to enemy ships for information.
What’s the next step for the research team?
Li explained “our next steps will be to study a diversity of terrain and animal shapes to discover more terradynamic shapes, and even morphing shapes. These new concepts will enable terrestrial robots to go through various cluttered environments with minimal sensors and simple controls.”
The team will continue to work on getting the robot cockroach ready for real-life search and rescue.
[Image Credit: Toby Hudson /Wikimedia Commons]
