Cockroaches are some of the most resilient creatures known to man. That¡¯s a problem when you¡¯re trying to get them out of your home, but it might just be the inspiration that robotics researchers at UC Berkeley and Harvard need.
The scientists are looking to the cockroach as a natural model they can base robots one. And one of the traits they¡¯re trying to copy is how the cockroach moves, particularly how it can trot headfirst into a wall and immediately climb its surface.
¡°Under the naked eye, cockroaches appeared to perform a smooth, ¡®elegant¡¯ transition onto the vertical wall¡± the research paper states. Cockroaches may not be particularly agile in general, but scientists have long been fascinated by how quickly and seamlessly they can switch between horizontal and vertical movement. They just run right into a wall and use that forward momentum to begin climbing.
A cockroach does all of that in just 75 milliseconds. Compare that to robots which have to constantly stop, take readings, analyse, and then move, and you can see why they have much to learn from their bug counterparts.
One fact the scientists realised is that cockroaches can do this because they¡¯re so tiny. A larger creature like a panther running full tilt at a wall might have greater momentum to climb, but it also makes it harder for it to transition from moving horizontally to vertically. In fact, it¡¯s more likely to injure itself than a smaller creature. To make use of this roach trait, the scientists built a small lightweight robot.
Called the Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod (DASH), it weighs only 16 grams and fits in the palm of your hand. Most interestingly, the robot eschews sensors that would predict what¡¯s coming up ahead in favour of a soft exoskeleton that would let it survive an eight-storey fall.
Running at full speed, the team managed to get DASH to transition from a head-on collision to a vertical stand. Sure, it¡¯s not exactly a finished project but it¡¯s a start. And with the proof that the cockroach method works, now the team is focused on getting DASH to actually climb the walls.