Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Home | Dictionary | Timeline | New

Soft Caterpillar Robot Powered By Light

This soft little caterpillar robot was developed at the University of Warsaw.

Inspired by the rippling locomotion of caterpillars, physics researchers at the University of Warsaw created the robot that at first glance appears to be nothing more than a thin transparent strip. But its body is made from light sensitive elastomer aligned in a molecular pattern, the secret to its creepy-crawly movement. Exposure to light causes its body to contract in a wave-like ripple, propelling its body forward.

By controlling the lighting conditions, the researchers were able to get the robot to perform different actions. The caterpillar robot can crawl up slopes, through tiny crevices, and can carry loads up to ten times its own mass.

Caterpillars have inspired robot designs before, but the challenge has been building them at natural scale because available actuators have typically been too large, the researchers say.

"Designing soft robots calls for a completely new paradigm in their mechanics, power supply and control. We are only beginning to learn from nature and shift our design approaches towards these that emerged in natural evolution," Piotr Wasylczyk, head of the Photonic Nanostructure Facility at the University of Warsaw, said in a statement.

Via PopSci.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 8/19/2016)

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")

Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'

Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.' - Rog Philips, 1950.

Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'

Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto
Blue collar bot.

	Web TechNovelgy.com

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'

US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'

Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'

Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'

Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'

Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'

Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'

Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'

Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'

I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'

Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'

Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.

'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'

Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'

ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'

Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories