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Home > News > Roach-inspired robot

Roach-inspired robot

Fall 2019 Berkeley Engineer cover
October 25, 2019
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Fall 2019

Cockroaches, known for their superior survival skills, are the inspiration behind the hardy, insect-like robot from the lab of Liwei Lin, professor of mechanical engineering. The robot, which weighs less than one-tenth of a gram, can withstand a weight of around 60 kg — about the weight of an average human — which is approximately 1 million times the weight of the robot. The size of a large postage stamp, the robot is made of a thin sheet of polyvinylidene fluoride, a piezoelectric material that expands or contracts with electricity. The sheet is covered with a layer of an elastic polymer, initially bent at an angle. The researchers added a front leg so that, as the material bends and straightens under an electric field, the oscillations propel the device forward in a leapfrogging motion. The resulting robot can move at a speed of 20 body lengths per second, a rate comparable to that of a cockroach and reported to be the fastest pace among insect-scale robots. It can also zip through tubes, climb small slopes and carry light loads, such as a peanut. Such tiny, resilient robots could play a role in search and rescue missions, squeezing into spots too small or dangerous for a dog or human to go.

Topics: Robotics & AI, Devices & inventions, Mechanical engineering, Research
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