2023-09-07 12:45:29
Inspired by some animals, roboticists have created a new model of a very small robot, called CLARI, that walks on legs and can passively change shape to pass through very narrow spaces. Such a robot could play a decisive role in searching for survivors trapped under rubble after a disaster.
CLARI, whose name derives from the acronym in English for “Compliant Legged Articulated Robotic Insect”, is the work of the team of Heiko Kabutz and Kaushik Jayaram, both from the University of Colorado in Boulder, United States.
Each CLARI model robot weighs less than a ping-pong ball and several copies of them fit in the palm of one hand.
CLARI can transform its shape from square to long and thin when the space through which it must move is too narrow for its primary shape.
Right now, CLARI has four legs, but it will surely have more in later versions.
“Eventually, we would like to build an eight-legged, spider-like robot that could walk on a web,” Kabutz explains.
A CLARI model robot, in the palm of a hand. (Photo: Casey Cass/CU Boulder)
CLARI is still in a primitive phase of development. The robot, for example, needs to be connected to cables that supply it with power and send it basic commands. However, the robotists’ plan is to train it so that it can move on its own through spaces unreachable by any conventional robot, such as the inside of jet engines or the tiny spaces under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Kabutz and Jayaram present the technical details of their new robot in the academic journal Advanced Intelligent Systems, under the title “Design of CLARI: A Miniature Modular Origami Passive Shape-Morphing Robot.” (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
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