A robotic gecko has been added to the local robotic zoo that already includes a tuna, a dog, a smaller dog, a lobster, a lamprey, a clam, and a whole school of fish.
The MIT Biomimetics Lab’s “Stickybot“ has footpads that mimic a gecko’s, allowing it to scale walls. The robot could be used in military surveillance and search and rescue.
The biomimetics lab is also working on a robot inspired by the cheetah, according to MIT. Yikes.
It’s robotic fish day at the MHT Blog. Not content to be messing around with building just one fish robot, MIT reports two of its researchers, Kamal Youcef-Toumi and Pablo Valdivia Y Alvarado, have developed a whole school of fish robots. MIT News offers a few differences between these new RoboFish and the MIT-developed RoboTuna, the precursor of Boston Engineering’s Ghost Swimmer:
Robotic fish are not new: In 1994, MIT ocean engineers demonstrated Robotuna, a four-foot-long robotic fish. But while Robotuna had 2,843 parts controlled by six motors, the new robotic fish, each less than a foot long, are powered by a single motor and are made of fewer than 10 individual components, including a flexible, compliant body that houses all components and protects them from the environment. The motor, placed in the fish’s midsection, initiates a wave that travels along the fish’s flexible body, propelling it forward.
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