Pleurobot: The salamander-like robot

A bio-inspired salamander-robot.

This Salamander-like robot is called the Pleurobot. Inspired by nature, the makers took the advantages that a biomimetic design can offer. They recorded three-dimensional X-ray videos of salamanders, Pleurodeles waltl while walking on ground, walking underwater and swimming.

They tracked 64 points on the animal skeleton and recorded the 3d-movements of the bones in great detail.
Using optimization on all the recorded postures they deduced the number and position of active and passive joints needed for the robot, resulting in the following robot. The Pleurobot provides torque control for all the active joint.

Source: http://biorob.epfl.ch/pleurobot

The DALER robot can fly and walk

Deployable Air-Land Exploration Robot can walk and fly.

Inspired by a vampire bat, this wing-morphing, shock-proof DALER robot can walk and fly. Inside the wings there is a foldable skeleton mechanism. Covered with a soft fabric, it can change it’s shape so that they can be used both as wings and as legs. For now it can fly to a location, land and walk. Future development of the DALER includes to hover and to take off autonomously from the ground in order to allow the robot to return to the air.

Source: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-3190/10/1/016005/article

Autonomous Walking Snake Monster Robot

Built a Spider from Snakes.

This hexapod robot was built with modular actuators from the Biorobotics Lab’s snake robot project. Developed at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, this six legged has a great stability and can withstand kicks and pushes. The actuators in each joint allow simultaneous position-velocity-torque control, were first used in a robotic snake. This work is funded by the DARPA M3 (Maximum Mobility and Manipulation) program.

Gallery: Powered Exoskeletons

Science fiction meets reality?
Last week I saw some movies where the main character wore a powered exoskeleton. A powered exoskeleton is a mobile machine consisting primarily of an outer framework  and powered by a system of motors or hydraulics that delivers at least part of the energy for limb movement. Where the exosuits in the movies were primarily used to save the world (or fire a lot of bullets) it got me thinking about different exoskeletons and what are they used for today. This post shows a small gallery about these amazing pieces of technology. Check the sources if you want to know more.

Sources:

Nasa X1
Ekso Bionics
Cyberdyne HAL
Raytheon xos 2
Rewalk