This Robot Has All the Right Moves
This Robot Has All the Right Moves
July 29, 2016
Yahoo! Tech — If you’re searching for a robot with some serious moves, look no further than the new Single-Actuator Wave Robot (SAW) created by BGU engineers. The biological-inspired robot propels itself through a “continuously advancing” transverse wave.
To state it simply, it’s a robot that moves forward by doing the worm dance.
“It turns out that the wave is a very efficient mechanism for moving on tough surfaces, such as sand, gravel, mud, rubble, and many others,” says Dr. David Zarrouk of BGU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, who led the project.
The SAW robot
The SAW robot is powered by a single motor that rotates a spine-like helix, embedded inside a series of 3-D printed plastic links. As the chain-like links touch the ground, they rotate, pushing the robot forward.
The way the robot is created allows it to be easily scalable up or down, opening the door to a host of potential applications.
“The robot could be as small as just one centimeter,” says Dr. Zarrouk. “At that size we think it could be a very useful tool for medicine, since it would be possible for someone to swallow it, and then for it to act as a self-propelled capsule for endoscopy or even taking biopsies.”
Read more on the Yahoo! Tech website >>
Watch a video about how the SAW robot works >>
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