epals wild robots experience article packet · 7/30/2008 · the sandfish lizard’s wedge-shaped...

ePals WILD ROBOTS EXPERIENCE

ARTICLE PACKET

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Table of Contents Robot Zoo ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

Crawls, Creeps, Swims, or Flies .................................................................................................................... 7

Anatomy of a Robot ................................................................................................................................... 10

It’s In The Legs ............................................................................................................................................ 12

Robots to the Rescue ................................................................................................................................. 14

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What if your robot needs to swim through the water, wriggle through sand, or climb trees? As robot makers try to design robots that are able move in different environments, they are studying the way bugs, birds, fish, and reptiles move, and copying some of nature’s cleverest design ideas into their bots.

Robot FishPollution-monitoring

robot fish will soon be swimming off the coast of

Spain. The fish suit is not a disguise—it’s just the best possible shape for energy-efficient swimming. When chemical sensors in the their chins detect pollution, such as an oil spill, these robot guardians will pinpoint the

Something's fishy here . . .

Feeding time just isn’t the same with

batteries.

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RobotZoo

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Robot GeckoWhat can climb walls better than Spider-Man? A gecko—and now, the gecko-inspired Stickybot. This robot uses a silicon imitation of the fine, clingy hairs on geckos’ feet to climb straight up smooth surfaces such as glass. Other climbing robots use pads covered with tiny hooks to

Robot InchwormTreebot imitates the motion of an inchworm as it climbs up the trunks of trees, first feeling around for the best hold, then using its multiple arms to grab tight in just the right place.

Copycat

Robot RatTaking its

cue from animal whiskers, Scratchbot uses long, sensitive feelers to detect nearby objects and sense motion by the air currents they stir up. Many robots rely on sonar or bouncing lasers to detect

See some of these robots in action at www.askmagkids.

I smell a robot!

Tickle, tickle!

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Robot DogWhat’s inside of a robot dog? Though they may look like animals on the outside, on the inside these robotic creatures are all machine, filled with gears, motors, sensors, batteries, and electronics.

Robot Sandfish Small robots are often used to scout out dangerous places such as mines and

collapsed buildings. This robot imitates the sandfish lizard’s wedge-shaped head

and undulating body motion to “swim”

through dirt and rubble. Someday it might even

Robot HummingbirdIf you hear a metallic buzzing nearby, it might just be a robot spy. This tiny surveillance bot imitates the flying style of a hummingbird to locate a target and then hover in place while

Ooo, these X-ray glasses

really dowork!

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Robot SnakeThis observing robot climbs up trees the easy way—by imitating a snake, rolling around the trunk and gripping fast. On the ground, these rollers let it move quickly, turn, and raise its camera head to check out the terrain. But no hissing, please.

Robot LobsterWhen robot designers wanted to build a robot that could keep its footing on rocky seafloors and river bottoms, they modeled it on the sure-footed lobster. Sensors instead of claws let RoboLobster

At last! My very own robot!

I am NOT a fish!

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RHex, which stands for robot

hexapod, mimics the move-

ment of the world’s least liked ani-

mals — cockroaches. Hexapodmeans that it has six legs. RHex

was developed about ten years ago,

and you can buy one today for

about $10,000. The smallest hexa-

pod robot is a lot bigger than a

cockroach, about 14 x 12 x 3

inches. Though it can move on its

own, usually it’s directed by some-

one using a joystick to control

speed and direction.

RHex can run over rugged ter-

rain with the power from a set of

batteries for about two and a quar-

ter miles. It moves at about six

miles per hour and can navigate

slopes of more than 45 degrees,

swim, and climb stairs. Like a cock-

roach, it moves three legs at a time.

See these robots move at:

www.sandboxinnovations.com/index.php?leaf=16.

RHex moves so well because it has

a camera that acts as an eye, a com-

COCKROACHES TO THE RESCUE

puter that acts as a brain, motors to

function like muscles and legs, and

sensors to feel obstacles and deter-

mine which way is up and down.

There’s even a hexapod robot that

can dance. Check it out at:

kodlab.seas.upenn.edu/~ese112/index.php?leaf=2.

This type of robot could help

first responders, emergency personnel

who are first on the scene of major

disasters. “[We envision] our

robot, RespondBot, will be the first

tool sent into a ground zero,” says

Dr. Haldun Komsuoglu, robotics

researcher at University of Pennsyl-

vania and co-founder and CEO of

Sandbox Innovations, Inc. “It will

reach the problem area quickly and

send back crucial visual inspection

and chemical, biological, and radio-

logical readings for the first respon-

ders to assess the situation before

rescue personnel are sent.”

Crawls, Creeps, Swims, or Flies ROBOTS GO WILD!

by Peg Lopata

Wouldn’t it be great if a robot could fly like a bird, crawl up a walllike a spider , or swim like a fish? Scientists and engineers havelong sought to mimic the ef ficiency of plants and animals. For

example, V elcro’s inventor , Geor ge de Mestral, got his idea for the innova-tive fastener by carefully examining cockleburs, and the Wright brotherscopied birds’ wings for their airplanes. The science of mimicking animalsand the natural world is called biomimetics, from biomimesis , whichmeans “to mimic life.” Robots that mimic animals ar e just as fascinatingas the critters they copy .

1 7 3 7 • French engineer Jacques de Vaucanson builds a clockwork duck thatflaps its wings, quacks, and even digests food.

www.odysseymagazine.com 11

TOP: An exterminator wouldn’t wantto remove this helpful roach calledRHex. That’s not the case for thecommon pest on which its design wasbased (bottom).

Ody_0810_composite_final 7/30/08 1:24 PM Page 11

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Imagine you’re riding along on

your bicycle, when suddenly it

blares — like a fire alarm going off.

Up ahead you see why. There’s a

fallen tree in the road. Whew!

Lucky your onboard collision sen-

sor saw that! Just a pie-in-the-sky

idea? Not if you understand how

locusts see. Right now, scientists

and engineers are developing robots

with visual system sensors that

could help us avoid collisions just

as well as locusts do.

A locust’s visual system is called

a lobula giant movement detector

(LGMD). It’s actually a large neu-

ron in the locust’s optic lobe, which

makes the insect very skillful at

avoiding collisions. Dr. Claire Rind,

a researcher at Newcastle Univer-

sity in the United Kingdom who

builds artificial visual systems, dis-

covered how the LGMD works. She

strapped locusts in specially

designed “chairs” for a most

unusual ride, during which they

were bombarded with video of

scenes from the movie Star Wars.Probes had been placed under each

locust’s skin, which enabled the

researchers to learn how the locusts

avoided collisions with objects in

the movie scenes. Rind concluded

the LGMD gives the locusts warn-

ing of an impending collision,

triggering escape behavior when a

large object approaches.

Not only is the locust’s visual

system great at avoiding collisions,

but engineers are intrigued that all

the neural circuitry for it is

extremely small. Many animal-

inspired robots copy a specific

animal’s abilities, but not its size.

That’s because the machines needed

to make the robot function like the

animal can’t be made as small as the

animal parts being copied. But in

the world of robot development,

striving for smaller parts is often

part of building a better robot. If

your bike’s onboard collision visual

system were as big as your bike, for

example, it wouldn’t be useful. But

what about if it were as small as

a pea? A robot with a tiny visual

system as effective as a locust’s

would be very useful.

Check out robots with locust

visual systems at:

www.k-team.com.

12 www.odysseymagazine.com Optic lobe — Part of the brain containing visual centers

Who says you’re faster?

The optic lobe, located in the locust’s brain, is common in fish and birds,and will someday be common in robots, too.

LOOKS LIKE A LOCUST


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RoboPuffin is another animal-

inspired robot. It copies the

movement of (surprise, surprise!)

puffins, seabirds with vertically

flattened bills. When operational,

RoboPuffin will swim in an area of

water, patrolling and recording

oceanographic information.

Although the robot is designed to

be autonomous, at this early stage in

its development it can’t do much of

anything. “At the moment, we’d be

happy just to see it go forward!”

says Dr. William Megill, a bio-

mimetics specialist at the University

of Bath in the United Kingdom.

To design RoboPuffin, the

researchers first carefully examined

how puffins move under water.

Puffins’ short wings make them

superb underwater swimmers. To

fly or swim, a puffin tips its wings

forward so that the trailing wing

edges are above the leading edges.

In water, verses in air, the puffin

can tip its wings even farther for-

ward to propel itself more horizon-

tally. On the upstroke, the bird

folds its wings in against its body,

reducing drag as it moves through

the water. Then the bird flaps its

wings, lifting its entire body upward

and forward.

RoboPuffin will replicate this

maneuver, but it will be able to lift

itself on both the upstroke and

downstroke. Of course a robot

puffin doesn’t look much like the

real bird. Its wings are made of a

material that’s hard like plastic, but

flexible like rubber. It will have

computers, a webcam, sonar, an

artificial nose to detect chemicals

underwater, and a compass. It will

even be able to tell when its battery

is running low and head for the

dock for a recharge!

Megill would like to see

RoboPuffin put to work mapping

out the distribution of salmon in

the fjords of western British

Columbia. “It would finally begin to

address the question of ‘where do

little salmon go when they leave the

river?’— something really basic

that we still don’t understand,” he

says hopefully. The information

would enable researchers to prop-

erly manage the salmon species so

it could become plentiful again.

There’s no limit to the possibili-

ties of biomimetic robots because

the animal world is endlessly diverse

and scientists’ and engineers’ imagi-

nations are limitless. In the not-so-

distant future, you may even be

helped by robots that swim like fish,

crawl like bugs, or fly like birds.

Peg Lopata is associate editor ofFACES magazine and a frequent con-tributor to ODYSSEY .

Autonomous — Independent; not controlled by outside forces

Drag — The retarding force exerted on a moving body by water or air

Sonar — A system using transmitted and reflectedunderwater sound waves to locate submerged objects

ROBOTS 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

1 8 6 8 • American inventorZadroc P. Dederick builds “SteamMan,” which can pull a cart.


A puffin? The only resemblancethis robot has to its namesakeis its little purple fins.

Puffin pals show their stuff!


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Other Eye A transmitter in Pleo’s nose acts like bat sonar, bouncing pulses of infrared light (which we can’t see) off objects so he doesn’t walk into walls or fall off of tables. Pleos can also use these

Eye Though Pleo has eyes, he actually sees with a video camera in his nose. With this camera, Pleo can tell light from dark, detect movement, and track yellow and red objects. You can even download everything Pleo sees

Voice A small speaker in his mouth turns electrical signals into sounds. Pleo has a menu of different recorded

Tongue An infrared sensor in Pleo’s mouth can detect play food (or fingers).

Brain Pleo’s brain is a computer, and he doesn’t keep it in his head. Two small computer chips contain all the programming that allows Pleo to move, sense his

Ear Microphones in Pleo’s ears turn sounds into electrical signals—just like your ears do. Having two microphones lets him sense which direction a sound is coming from, and he will turn

his head toward it.

Your body has lots of different parts—each does a different job, and each is important. Robots are full of important parts too.

Pleo is a robot pet dinosaur, modeled on a baby camarasaurus. What’s inside Pleo? How does he work? Let’s take off his skin and find out...

I

II

I

text © 2011 by Glenn Murphy

Can we take you apart to see how

you work?

Can’t I just tell you?

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I Skin Similar to the way nerves in your skin

work, touching Pleo causes tiny changes in the electric current in sensor plates on his head, legs, and back. This lets

Nerves Pressure sensors in his feet tell Pleo whether he’s on solid ground or has been picked

Stomach You get energy from food. Robots get energy

Muscle Animals move by contracting muscles. Robots move by turning motors on and off in their joints. Each of Pleo’s legs has two electric motors and 32 gears, which allow complex movements like crouching, walking, and even balancing on two feet! In Pleo’s neck and tail, motors pull cables

Inner Ear Tilt sensors in his side tell Pleo which way up he is and whether he’s standing, lying down, or dangling upside down by his tail. You have similar sensors in your inner ear (though yours aren’t made of metal).

By Glenn Murphy

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I

1111

Can you walk like a robot?“Sure,” you answer. “I can walk with stiffstraight legs and move from side to side.”

You’re right. That’s how most robots walk. But a new kind of robot is being designed.

It’s called the MERbot.For a long time, engineers have been trying

to design a lighter, more flexible robot—onethat can walk over rough ground withoutfalling. Today’s two-legged robots wobble andtopple over easily. Engineers are working on a robot that can stay on its feet. If MERbot could talk, it would say, “It’s in the legs.”

Scott Stanford and other engineers atCalifornia’s SRI International have designed anew type of robot legs. Not only are the legsdifferent, but the whole body probably won’t look anything like present robots. Right now,MERbot’s body is a flat chunk of hard plasticsitting on top of six legs. These robots look

more like bugs!Why bugs? The fact is, bugs are better

than two-legged humans at moving withoutfalling. “To walk on two legs,” Stanford says, “youneed to balance your whole system or else you fallover.” When you walk, one foot is on the ground whilethe other foot is in the air waiting to come down. Yourbody has to work hard to keep you from falling. Whenbugs scurry around, three of their six legs are alwayson the ground. The new robots might walk like bugs.

But there’s more to MERbot’s legs than justnumbers. In your legs, muscles pull on your leg bonesto make them move. MERbot has something like

“IT’S IN THE

Andrew says: If Icould build a robot, I would program it tomake baseball cardsbecause I love tocollect baseballcards.

The six-legged MERbot (above) hasinspired some other “bots” withamazing legs. Little Dog (below)

and Big Dog (right)are powered

with gasolineengines.

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muscles, too. Its legs are soft rolls,not hard metal. They are madefrom an amazing materialthat expands or moves whenactivated by electricity.(The legs are calledMultifunctionalElectroelastomerRolls—that’swhere the MERcomes from.)MERbot can bendits whole leg andgo! And it goessmoothly—no clunkywalking, no falling.

Right now, MERbotjust shows off itsfantastic legs. ButStanford says that withsensors added, like the fivesenses of humans, theserobots could scramble overrocks and poke through dirt to search for trapped people.Soft robots can go placeswhere no human or hardrobot would dare.

LEGS”by Barbara Fischer

WOOFMeet some robotic dogs with

AMAZING legs: Big Dog,Little Dog, and their pals. You can watch them walk,

climb, slip, and slide at

www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

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n August 6, 2006, 16 coal

miners working 1,500 feet

underground in the Crandall

Canyon mine in Emery

County, Utah, felt the earth shift and buckle

beneath them. Coal shafts below and around

them heaved and walls bulged. A low rumble

quickly exploded into a roar that seemed to

surround them, signaling a cave-in so powerful

it registered 3.9 on the Richter Scale — a mea-

surement typically reserved for earthquakes.

There was no time for the men to even

begin the quarter-mile journey to the surface.

They were trapped. For the next 10 days the

nation waited, watched, and hoped for some

word of a miraculous rescue. That word never

O came. The 16 miners, along with three rescue

workers who died in the effort to save them,

were among 47 coal mining fatalities in 2006.

It was a heartbreaking tragedy, not only for

the families and friends of the 19 men, but for

the scores of others who worked tirelessly to try

and save them. Among those working was Dr.

Robin Murphy, a University of South Florida

engineering professor who offers help in such

disasters in the form of rescue robots.

Since Murphy’s robots are designed for spe-

cific types of catastrophes, they don’t all look

the same. Some are small and move on treads;

others have cameras that look like eyes. But

they all do serve one general purpose: to extend

the senses of human rescue teams. To do this,

28 www.odysseymagazine.com

Robin Murphy with her

“marsupial robot,”a large robot that carries

smaller ones to a disaster site.

Robots to the

Rescue

by Susan Barnes and Steven R. Wills


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some rescue robots use cameras (to extend

sight), microphones and speakers (to extend

listening and speaking), chemical sensors (to

“smell” the air for toxins), and maneuverable

wheels, treads, and arms (to extend reach).

Here They Come

Although scientists have talked about using

robots in rescue situations for many years,

rescue robots’ history is actually short. After

the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which

claimed 168 lives and injured 800, researchers

began to see how robots could have been used to

search the collapsed Federal Building. That same

year, robot prototypes were used to search for

victims in the Conchita, California, mudslides. continued

It’s OK. Here ComesSurvivor Buddy.

You wake up in the midst of a night-mare. The last thing you remember

before losing consciousness is some-one yelling, “tornado!” You’re prettybanged up, but the worst part is youcan’t move — trapped beneath col-lapsed ceiling plaster, steel beams, andwho knows what else? How long haveyou been here? Where is everyone? Youyell for help — but in the chaos outside,can anyone hear you?

What’s that soft whirring sound? It’sbehind you, but you can’t turn around.Then you hear a strange voice saying,“We know you’re there. We can see youon our camera. Tell us if you’re hurt.”

It’s Survivor Buddy. You’ve been found!Survivor Buddy (currently under devel-

opment) is a type of rescue robotdesigned to keep victims company andprovide emotional suppor t until humanhelp arrives. It can be hours or evendays before a trapped victim is rescued,and that wait can be terrifying, even if avictim knows help is on the way. Dr.Robin Murphy is designing SurvivorBuddy to communicate with the victim,offer a drink of water, and during delayedrescues even provide pictures or video offamily members. The robot’s purpose issimply to calm victims by keeping themcompany. And Survivor Buddy has help— it can play soft, soothing music.(Sorry, though — no heavy metal. Thevibrations might shake therubble.)

S.B. and S.R.W.

Seiko EpsonCorporation's Micro

Flying Robot looks likea miniature helicopter

about the size of agiant bug. The

company hopes it willbe used for disaster

rescue, security, andspace exploration in

the future. It fliesautonomously

according to a flight-route program sent by

Bluetooth wirelessfrom a computer.

1 9 7 7 • Science fictionrobots R2-D2 and C-3PO thrillmovie audiences in Star Wars.



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In order to boost interest in this technology,

the American Association for Artificial Intelli-

gence held the first Rescue Robot Competition

in 2000. These competitions have increased in

frequency and in difficulty over the last eight

years, providing a showcase for better designs

and new ideas (see “Smoke Detectors,” p. 38).

By 2001, after the destruction of the World

Trade Center, some rescue robots were ready

for action. They were flown to Manhattan to

help in four ways: to search for victims; to find

pathways through the rubble; to check for

structural weaknesses; and to detect hazardous

materials. Although their use was limited, the

robots were able to explore spaces too small

and too dangerous for people, and were able to

find remains within the wreckage. By 2005, in

the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it was no

longer a surprise to human rescue teams to see

robots on the job. Robots also assisted rescue

forces at the collapse of a parking garage in

Florida in 2007, as well as at the Crandall

Canyon mine disaster described earlier.

Success Within Reach

Each new challenge for rescue robots has

brought improvement as well as failure —

and each failure has led to ideas for further

improvement. For example, since many robots

at disaster sites must be very small (to get into

tight places), they have a limited battery size.

This triggered Murphy’s development of the

“marsupial robot.” The ’bot is large (and so

has a large battery) but its purpose is to carry

several smaller robots (with smaller batteries)

close to a disaster area, where they can then be

deployed.

Murphy understands not only the potential

of rescue robots, but also the need for them.

She is confident that “one day you’ll see res-

cuers and dogs at a disaster site, but if you don’t

see a robot you’ll say, ‘Where are they?’ because

they’ll have become so commonplace. They’ll

do things dogs and people can’t.”

Susan Barnes and Steven R. Wills are a team offreelance writers whose last article for ODYSSEYwas about the “per fect” cow.

30 www.odysseymagazine.com

Each new challenge has for r

escue robots

brought improvement as wellas failure.

A staff member of the

InternationalRescue System

Institutedemonstrates asnakelike robotcalled “Souryu”that can search

for peopleburied in debris

at disastersites.


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epals wild robots experience article packet · 7/30/2008 · the sandfish lizard’s wedge-shaped...

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