X-4 climbing robot that moves like a reptile brings engineers closer to robotics
Lead author Johanna Schultz stated:After four years of studying the movement of lizards and creating several generations of robot designs (X-4 is only the latest version), the team concluded that lizards have improved their way of movement, optimizing their movement over difficult terrain over many years of evolution
“The best configuration for the climbing robot turned out to be exactly the one used by the lizards. After evolving, they found the optimal gait for climbing, ”explains Schultz.
The key discovery was that the front legslizards turn 20 degrees and their hind feet 100 degrees, despite the expectation that their direction-dependent adhesive mechanism (their claws or the gecko's sticky pads) will align with the direction of movement up tree trunks. Scientists used this discovery and created a prototype of a robotic lizard, which they taught to crawl like a real reptile.
Credit: Schultz et al.
The study of the mechanisms of movement of reptiles will contributecontribution to robotics optimization. Often, engineers focus on improving AI-based environmental perception and autonomy rather than the movement and structure of machines.
"Understanding what parameters influenceBased on the animal's movement, it is possible to determine how the robot should look and move depending on the requirements and tasks. Does he need to be super-fast, super-stable or somewhere in between,” concludes Schultz.
Lizard-like robots have the potential for search and rescue operations and remote inspections.
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Geckos are a large family of small andmedium-sized, very peculiar lizards, characterized in most cases by biconcave (amphicoelous) vertebrae, loss of temporal arches, usually paired parietal bones, absence of the parietal foramen, as well as more or less expanded clavicles, usually with holes on the inner edges.