Mini-robots modeled on insects may be smallest, lightest, fastest ever developed
Two insect-like robots, a mini-bug and a water strider may be the smallest, lightest and fastest fully functional micro-robots ever known to be created. Such miniature robots could someday be used for work in areas such as artificial pollination, search and rescue, environmental monitoring, micro-fabrication or robotic-assisted surgery. Reporting on their work in the proceedings of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, the mini-bug weighs in at eight milligrams while the water strider weighs 55 milligrams. Both can move at about six millimeters a second.
Physicists are using small wheeled robots to better understand these indirect mechanical interactions, how they play a role in active matter, and how we can control them.
Researchers have developed resilient artificial muscles that can enable insect-scale aerial robots to effectively recover flight performance after suffering severe damage.
Anyone who has ever tried to pack a family-sized amount of luggage into a sedan-sized trunk knows this is a hard problem. Robots struggle with dense packing tasks, too.