How did those alternative friends in the robotics world come into being?

[Editor's Note] The author of this article is a member of the National Key Laboratory of Complex Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, specializing in underwater robots.

Speaking of robots, most people may think of the cute and agile NAO robot, the polite and well-behaved ASIMO robot, or David in the movie "Artificial Intelligence" who looks exactly like a human. In fact, these robots are all humanoid robots, which are designed and manufactured to imitate human form and behavior, and generally have humanoid limbs and heads, either separately or simultaneously.

However, in addition to humanoid robots, a large part of bionic robots are robots that imitate our human friends - those creatures in nature, and are created based on the inspiration they bring to us. Next, I will introduce to you our alternative machine friends, some of the world's most advanced bionic robots. This article will focus on land bionic robots.

1. Big Dog

The BigDog robot was designed by Boston Dynamics for the U.S. military. At present, this robot can be regarded as the most representative life-defense robot among quadruped robots. The BigDog has good load-bearing capacity, excellent stability and robustness, and can help humans to transport ammunition and supplies. Since it can run faster than humans and has a body of steel, it can serve as a good combat vanguard. It is equipped with a vision and positioning system, which can well complete tasks such as following. The U.S. military is using Afghanistan as a test site for the BigDog.

Through testing of the BigDog in harsh geological conditions such as snow, mud, and rock debris, it was found that the BigDog can jump to a height of 1.1 meters, carry a weight of 154 kilograms, and complete a long-distance trek of 10 kilometers in about 2.5 hours.

In fact, Boston Dynamics has also launched a puppy robot (LittleDog), which is mainly used for some basic research, such as learning about motors, controlling power, sensing the environment, and tire-type movement (its feet are wheeled). The host inside the puppy's body can collect joint angles, motor currents, body orientation, and stress between the soles of the feet and the ground through sensors. It has been widely used as a research project funded by DARPA at universities such as MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and Southern California.

2. Cheetah

There are two major institutions that have done relatively well in the development of Cheetah Robotics, one is Boston Dynamics and the other is MIT.

Boston Dynamics' Cheetah robot changes its speed by moving the hinge joints on its back back and forth, changing the step length and frequency of the movement, which is inspired by the movement characteristics of real animals. Currently, Boston Dynamics' Cheetah robot completes these experiments on a treadmill in the laboratory. On the treadmill, Cheetah is powered by a hydraulic pump. The next generation of Cheetah robots, also known as WildCat, will leave the tether and run on land. Boston Dynamics' Cheetah robot is currently the fastest legged robot in the world, at about 29 miles per hour, breaking the historical record of 13.1 miles set by MIT in 1989. Cheetah is currently funded by the Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

MIT Cheetah studied the tendon structure of real organisms and believed that the tendon structure can reduce impact force and increase the strength of the legs. Through finite element analysis, researchers designed a similar tendon structure foot and added a spring between the two tendons to increase a certain degree of flexibility. This gives MIT Cheetah excellent jumping and obstacle-crossing capabilities. Moreover, by modifying the drive motor at the joint and adding a tail, MIT Cheetah has the ability to run at high speed and good balance. Through experiments, it can run at a speed of 8.3 kilometers per hour for 2.23 hours, or use a 3-kilogram battery to run 10 kilometers.

3. Gecko Robot

(Boston Dynamics' RiSE robot)

Geckos are naturally used as bionic objects because of their advantages and characteristics of being able to crawl along vertical walls. There are many organizations that make gecko robots, and the more mature ones are Stanford University's Stickybot III and Boston Dynamics' RiSE.

The Stickybot III was developed on the Stickybot platform. It has four legs, each with four degrees of freedom, including the wrist, the main part for climbing vertical walls.

The main principle of the gecko robot being able to attach to the wall is that there are millions of hairs made of artificial rubber on each suction hand, each of which is only about 500 nanometers in diameter and less than 2 microns in length. The hair and the molecules on the vertical surface will generate a weak electromagnetic attraction, also known as the "van der Waals force." This force can make the gecko robot attach to the vertical surface.

Stickybot III is 36 centimeters long and moves at a speed of 5 centimeters per second; RiSE is 25 centimeters long and moves at a speed of 30 centimeters per second. Because the gecko robot can stick to the wall and walk, it can replace humans to perform "difficult" tasks such as anti-terrorism reconnaissance and earthquake search and rescue.

4. Kangaroo Robot

The Kangaroo Robot was developed by FESTO, another heavyweight company in the field of bionic robots.

The power system of the kangaroo robot is pneumatic, the main control board is powered by a power supply, and the "tendons" in its legs are a compressed air reservoir that helps it run or land accurately and smoothly. Under the thrust of the compressed air in the inner layer of the claws that touch the ground, the kangaroo robot can jump upward and forward. The legs push back and the kangaroo robot can move forward. When in the air, it will retract to the front. Every time this robot completes a jump, its claws will store air energy to continue the next jump.

In order to support the continuation of this series of movements, the researchers installed fixed spring devices on the two supporting feet of the kangaroo robot to imitate the two tendons on the feet of real kangaroos, thereby easing the jumping movements again and again.

The robot is over 1 meter tall and weighs about 7 kilograms. Each jump it performs is roughly 40 centimeters high and 80 centimeters long.

5. Ant Robot

The ant robot was also developed by FESTO.

The entire robot is not only a bionic imitation of a real ant, but another major breakthrough and innovation is that the ant robot uses complex control algorithms to simulate the movement of ant colonies.

The ant robots show us how individual ant robots react independently in different situations, cooperate with each other and work as a networked system. By pushing and pulling together, the ant robots move objects across a designated area. The intelligent division of work allows the load to be transported efficiently, which is a task that a single robot ant cannot accomplish.

However, not only do ant robots have amazing cooperative behaviors, but the way they are produced is also very unique.

First, the components are laser sintered and then dotted with visible conductor structures, the so-called 3D MID process. The circuits are attached to the surface of the mechanism, so both design and electrical functional requirements must be met. In this way, all technical components can be installed in or on the body of the ant and precisely fit together. After commissioning, an external control system is no longer required. However, we can also adjust and intervene in the parameters of the ant robot wirelessly.

6. Mantis Robot

The Mantis robot is a walking robot that looks like a mantis. It was built by Matt Denton, an engineer from Hampshire, UK, in March 2012. The Mantis robot has six legs, is 2.8 meters high, 5 meters wide, weighs 1.9 tons, and has a maximum speed of 1 kilometer per hour. So far, it is the world's largest all-terrain six-legged robot.

The robot is powered by a 2.2-liter turbocharged diesel engine and stands 2.8 meters tall. It can be driven by a person or remotely controlled using wireless technology, and its movement can adapt to various terrains. The hydraulic technology used by the mantis robot, valves, pipes and various accessories are all under computer control, and it uses 150 liters of liquid per minute.

7. Turtle Robot

Developed by Disney Research and students from ETH Zurich, the turtle-like robot is called BeachBot. Less than 2 feet long and less than 15 inches wide and high, BeachBot is currently used mainly for beach painting. Seven motors help BeachBot deploy the rake to create an artistic brush effect with a width ranging from 2 inches to 15 inches. The ball-shaped balloon wheels allow the robot to traverse all types of beaches without leaving traces, so as not to destroy the sand painting.

8. Soft Robots

Soft robots are a new type of flexible robot that can be driven only by air. The latest soft robots studied by scientists are made of paper and silicone rubber, and can bend, twist and grab objects more than 100 times their own weight. The design of soft robots is inspired by imitating the internal structure of humans or the external structure of insects, especially the latter.

For example, MIT has developed an earthworm robot, which crawls on the ground by repeatedly stretching and retracting its muscles, moving forward one step each time. Snails and sea cucumbers also use this movement principle called "peristalsis" to move, and our gastrointestinal tract also does the same thing, moving food along the esophagus into the stomach through muscle expansion and contraction. It crawls on the ground by stretching and retracting various parts of its body, and looks very much like an earthworm. This robot, which is almost entirely made of soft materials, is very flexible, and even if it is hit hard with a hammer, it can escape unscathed. The researchers named it Meshworm.

Another example is the caterpillar robot developed by Tufts University in the United States, which has received $3.3 million in research funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense. This robot took two months to build and is 12.7 cm long. It can independently control the movement of its limbs by sucking air into its limbs. Through manual or computer control, the robot has the ability to crawl and slide. Experimental results show that this soft robot can flexibly shuttle back and forth in this gap 15 times. In most cases, the soft robot takes less than 1 minute to go back and forth. It can adapt to various environments very tenaciously and can pass through various material surfaces, such as felt, gravel, mud, and even jelly.

9. Other bionic robots

At the TED NASA conference, Dennis Hong, director of Virginia Tech’s Robotics and Mechanics Laboratory (RoMeLa), introduced seven award-winning all-terrain robots his team has built at RoMeLa, including some outstanding biomimetic robots.

STriDER (Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot) is a three-legged robot that uses the conversion of kinetic energy and potential energy to move. It was inspired by a three-legged creature in Wells' novel "The War of the Worlds".

MARS (Multi-Appendage Robotic System) is a six-legged robot that uses an adaptive control algorithm to walk in harsh environments such as sand and carry a certain load.

IMPASS (Intelligent Mobility Platform with Active Spoke System) uses wheeled legs and is a mobile platform with a drive spoke system. This foot feature gives it excellent obstacle-crossing capabilities.

HyDRAS mainly uses the method of imitating the body twisting of snakes to complete the difficult movement of climbing trees.

10. Summary

Whether it is the big dog robot, the cheetah robot or the turtle robot, they are all bionic robots designed by us after observing and studying the geniuses in nature, using their excellent appearance and movement characteristics obtained after hundreds of years of evolution. Many of these robots can be used as our human assistants to complete some tasks that we humans cannot complete.

In this article, I mainly introduce land robots. In the next article, I will focus on underwater and aerial bionic robots. You can wait for my article "Those Outstanding Robot Spies - The World's Advanced Bionic Robots (Part 2) Underwater and Air" to be released in late September.

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