Cockroach-inspired new robot can squeeze through tiny cracks

Los Angles, February 9

An Indian-origin researcher-led team has created a cheap palm-sized robot using some of the creepy findings about cockroaches that may one day help save people trapped in the rubble of earthquakes or blasts.

Kaushik Jayaram, who recently got his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, said: "What's impressive about these cockroaches is that they can run as fast through a quarter-inch gap as a half-inch gap, by reorienting their legs completely out to the side."

"They're about half an inch (1.27 centimeter) tall when they run freely, but can squish their bodies to one-tenth of an inch (0.25 centimetre)," Jayaram, now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, said.

In addition, they can withstand forces 900 times their body weight without injury, he said.

Using the roach technique as inspiration, Jayaram designed a robot known as CRAM, for compressible robot with articulated mechanisms, that can splay its legs outward when squashed, then capped it with a plastic shield similar to the tough, smooth wings covering the back of a cockroach.

The model robot, described as simple and cheap, was built with an origami-like manufacturing technique, and is now available as an inexpensive kit made by Dash Robotics — a commercial spin-off from previous robotic work at UC Berkeley.

"This is only a prototype, but it shows the feasibility of a new direction using what we think are the most effective models for soft robots, that is, animals with exoskeletons," said Robert Full, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley.

"Insects are the most successful animals on earth. Because they intrude nearly everywhere, we should look to them for inspiration as to how to make a robot that can do the same".

"In the event of an earthquake, first responders need to know if an area of rubble is stable and safe, but the challenge is, most robots can't get into rubble," Full said.

"But if there are lots of cracks and vents and conduits, you can imagine just throwing a swarm of these robots in to locate survivors and safe entry points for first responders."      Full and his students have studied how animals walk, run, jump, glide, crawl and slither to understand the basic biomechanical principles that underlie locomotion, and that can be used to design better robots.

Full discovered 25 years ago that American cockroaches can run on two legs — a feat certified by the Guinness Book of World Records — and can achieve a speed of nearly 1.52 metre per second, or 50 times their body length per second.

Jayaram is now testing all parts of the cockroach to determine their mechanical properties and their role in the bugs' creepy crawling.

Jayaram and Full will publish their latest research this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UC Berkeley said in a release. — PTI