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Scientists design earthworm-like robot
Sunday August 12, 2012 03:01:11 PM,
IANS
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Washington: Researchers have engineered a soft robot that inches ahead with
earthworm-like peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by
contracting segments of its body.
The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably
resilient: even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, it
is able to inch away unscathed.
Sangbae Kim, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says such a soft
robot may be useful for navigating rough terrain or squeezing
through tight spaces, the journal IEEE/ASME Transactions on
Mechatronics reports.
The robot is named "Meshworm" for the flexible, meshlike tube that
makes up its body. Researchers created "artificial muscle" from
wire made of nickel and titanium, a shape-memory alloy that
stretches and contracts with heat, according to an MIT statement.
They wound the wire around the tube, creating segments along its
length, much like the segments of an earthworm. They then applied
a small current to the segments of wire, squeezing the mesh tube
and propelling the robot forward.
Besides Kim, other co-authors are graduate student Sangok Seok and
post-doctoral researcher Cagdas Denizel Ona, MIT; associate
professor Robert J. Wood, Harvard University; assistant professor
Kyu-Jin Cho, Seoul National University, and Daniela Rus, professor
of computer science and engineering at MIT.
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