BIOMIMETIC ROBOTS

Luke Chang &Yang Zhang

• Introduction

• Classification of Biomimetic Robots

• History of Biomimetic Robots

• Applications of Biomimetic Robots

• Example

• References

What are the Biomimetic Robots?

• Biomimetic robots borrow their structure and senses from animals, such as birds or insects. Their abilities are copied from earth's greatest examples of success, living organisms; they tend to function better in the unpredictable real world than the controlled artifice of a laboratory.

• However, those robots do not completely copy from animals, we actually extract those most useful

abilities, that is, we may make some modifications on the body structure of the robots in order to make our designs more practical.

The categories of the Biomimetic Robots

• There are different criterions

Imitation

Objectivemammals insects fishes amphibians

Applications military medical engineering entertainment

Way of Action

ambulate wiggle swim slide

some of the criterions

The history of the Biomimetic Robots• The most well-known early

biomimetic robots were a lobster.

• This model is established in the 1970s by Joseph Ayers, a biology professor at Northeastern University. The actions of real lobsters have been reverse-engineered and programmed into a library of actions which give the robotic lobster a similar behavior as the real ones.

The history of the Biomimetic Robots

• With the rapid development of biology and computer technology, it is possible for us to deeply understand and imitate the behaviors of many other animals.

• Birds, snakes, insects, amphibians etc.

• Actually, biomimetic robotics is an emerging subject that keeps developing these several years and has great potential in future.

General process

• Extract some certain special characteristics from animals

• Design the similar robots

• Utilize such robots to finish some special works

In this case, we can see that the scientist attempts to copy the structure of a worm (caterpillar), using soft materials and incorporating them into a new type of highly flexible robot. These robots will possibly have applications in biomedical diagnosis and surgery, emergency rescue and exploration, and for monitoring or repairing space vehicles.

What about more smaller ones?What if we could imitate the body structure and the behavior of small insects like mosquito or bee?We can use such robots in certain circumstance as tiny space where human and traditional robots can not work.Or they can be used in military affairs. They can perfectly finish a investigation task without alarming anyone. Moreover, they can also search for survivors afterearthquake.

Fishlike Robot

Fishlike robot is currentlya very popular topic. Simulating the unique model of action of fishes,we can design a robotwhich can use fin and tailto generate vortex, it can swim like a fish in the water. We then could use these robots to do some special investigations underwater.

Example• Think about snakes.• One of the most successful creature in the earth, the

victor of competition for survival.• Have the most unique manner of movement, without

limbs yet can crawl on the ground, swim in water or climb onto trees.

• Have a special body structure, lean and lanky, soft and flexible…

• We can take advantage of such characteristics, design snakelike robots which can handle lots of special tasks.

Snakelike robots

• Different ways of movement

• Structure

• Applications

• Combinations

Different ways of movement

• Straight Progression

• Strafing

Generally speaking, a snake has several manners of moving as follows:

Different ways of movement• pipe climbing (outside)

• pipe climbing (inside)

• Sliding

Different ways of movement• channel climbing

• swimming

Control algorithm for the snakelike mechanism

Interaction forces along the snakelike mechanisms in simultaneous contact with three push-points

Curve fitting with three simultaneous contact points

Eight intermediary configurations with initial (1) and final (8) conditions of the mechanism for a given trajectory. Red points indicate the contacted push-points. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.

Structure

For sliding more smoothly, it has wheels instead of snake’s scales

Universal joint

Universal joint

Urban Search and Rescue

With the highly flexible body structure of a snakelike robot, we are able to do some tough search when investigating or finding survivors.

Applications

Or we can use such feature to inspect special interior structure (e.g. tank)

Combinations

Add legs to a snakelike robot, then it can move with more flexible ways.

Combining with a 4-wheels bracket, a snakelikeRobot can do inspection more automatically.

In water

On ground

References

• The Tufts Biomimetic Devices Laboratory (BDL)• Biologically Inspired Robotics Group• The Stanford Biomimetic and Dexterous

Manipulation Laboratory • Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Robotics

Institute (RI) Bio-robotics Laboratory• Olin College Biomimetic Robotics Lab

Any Question?