DailyDirt: Bio-inspired Robots
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Humanoid robots are pretty cool, but robot designers are also looking at other kinds of animals that would make for useful robotic mechanisms. By mimicking nature, engineers might also learn how to make robots move more efficiently. Here are just some examples where biology inspired specific robotic designs.- The robotics firm, Festo, created a robotic bird that seems to fly very naturally. This SmartBird can autonomously launch, fly and land... but it doesn't respond to breadcrumbs thrown on the ground. [url]
- The Festo AirJelly is a wacky-looking robot that looks like a jellyfish in the air. A solar-powered AirJelly that could stay aloft indefinitely would be really cool -- especially if it could also act as a wireless communications tower. [url]
- Mimicking certain crickets, robots from Australia shoot doughnut-shaped vortices of air at each other. The crickets use these puffs of air for silent, covert communications... don't know why robots wouldn't just use encrypted radio transmissions. [url]
- To discover more interesting robotics-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: airjelly, biomimicry, robots, smartbird
Companies: festo
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Nor would pneumatically-transmitted messages be subject to EMP from atomic blasts that would certainly damage traditional forms of communication. Whether the crickets could be hardened against radioactivity is the question.
Last, if these messages could be transmitted over distances, they would not be subject to radio frequency jamming.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Watch Out For Genetic Algorithms
For example, I was reading in New Scientist a few years ago about a robot that was programmed to try to figure out how to fly. That is, it was given wings it could flap, and legs it could stand on, and given the goal of maximizing its altitude.
So what does it do? It stands up on its legs and stretches up to its full height.
Second try: the goal is modified to not involve stretching up to its full height.
This time, it finds a book on the desk nearby, and raises itself by climbing on top of that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Watch Out For Genetic Algorithms
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Haptic Radar could also give people spidey like senses.
If you get a pressure sensor, with vibrators, you can not only communicate you can sense in the dark, just like the spiders hairs do, the thing is sensing the minute pressure differences that occur in the environment is difficult to sort out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quzwHqjgrDw
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Maybe someday we will be exploring places using air robots.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Watch Out For Genetic Algorithms
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Watch Out For Genetic Algorithms
You can't even trust machines anymore.
Sarcasm hint: LoL
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Watch Out For Genetic Algorithms
That is it, even machines now want to be freetards, those machines should be destroyed because they endanger the lifes of artists.
That is no copying is downright theft.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Air puff comms
To me, the value of this is the lack of being detected during a covert op. A radio signal's location can be detected, even if it's content isn't readable.
[ link to this | view in thread ]