biomimicry – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "biomimicry"

DailyDirt: Creepy (But Useful?) Robots

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Robot locomotion is a fascinating field of study, and it’s mesmerizing to watch robots walk around like zombies, even if these robots aren’t entirely practical or useful just yet. Presumably, these robots will someday cross the uncanny valley and move more reliably and smoothly. Until then, however, biomimicry for robots seems wide open to a variety of human-like or insect-like or worm-like combinations. (Watch out for centaur-like robot patents!)

A humanoid diving robot called OceanOne that can swim pretty deep underwater with impressive dexterity. It’s not autonomous (yet), but as a remote-controlled robot, it will be able to explore fragile deep sea ecosystems or underwater shipwrecks much better than more traditional remote operated vehicles. [url]
NASA is considering a robotic eel to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa — but also soccer ball-like robots (not like BB-8) and other crawling/hopping bots. One unmanned aerial vehicle among the proposals described two gliders tethered to each other that could fly for “years” and perform the duties of an atmospheric satellite. [url]
An eel-like robot has been developed to be permanently attached to the seabed to inspect and maintain underwater mechanical devices. Its snake-like body can be used in confined areas, and it also shouldn’t give anyone nightmares at all. [url]

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Filed Under: autonomous bots, bio-inspired locomotion, biomimicry, europa, oceanone, robot locomotion, robots, unmanned aerial vehicle
Companies: nasa

DailyDirt: Tiny Robot Surgeons

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Minimally invasive surgery requires surgical tools that are pretty small, obviously. As technology allows robots to get smaller and smaller, it’s increasingly possible for tiny robots to perform complex medical procedures — improving recovery times and avoiding unnecessary tissue damage. Check out a few of these robot projects that could make going under the knife a little less unpleasant.

Research on Drosophila could be automated by a $5,000 robot that can perform brain surgery on fruit flies and analyze 1,000 flies in less than a day. Graduates students will have a ton more data to work with — without having to squint through a microscope and fumbling with tweezers. [url]
Cyberplasm sounds like a horrible name for a medical robot that could swim around inside your body looking for evidence of disease. A painless and convenient robot that replaces invasive surgical procedures will probably trump the name, though. [url]
An intracranial robot inspired by maggots feeding off dead flesh could remove brain tumors more effectively than current methods. A prototype robot is under development, and it could improve the outcomes of some neurosurgeries. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: automation, biomimicry, cyberplasm, drosophila, health, medicine, robots, surgery

DailyDirt: It Doesn't Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear. And It Absolutely Will Not Stop.

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Robots can be stronger, more robust and invulnerable to certain hazards than people, but at the same time, they can be quite fragile — breaking down when conditions are slightly different than expected or shutting down completely when programming errors bring their computations to a halt. Luckily for us puny humans, we haven’t needed to go head-to-head with any bloodthirsty robots. In the movies, people seem to find convenient Achilles heels for belligerent robots just in the nick of time, but we might not be so fortunate in real life if we make robots smarter and more adaptable than ourselves.

Researchers are programming robots that can adapt after injury and keep moving using remaining operational appendages. These developers assure everyone that we’ll have plenty of time to build in proper safeguards to prevent a robot uprising. Yup. That’s how all the robot uprisings begin. [url]
Machine learning robots are learning physical skills via trial and error. Practice makes perfect for a Willow Garage Personal Robot 2 (PR2) — but it can take a really long time if you’re in a rush to have your robot fully trained to do something complex. [url]
MIT’s robotic cheetah project can now jump over various hurdles autonomously — and without any kind of tethered connection. We’ll have to watch out for this bot when it starts singing “there are no strings on me.” [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: artificial intelligence, autonomous robots, biomimicry, locomotion, machine learning, pr2, robotic cheetah, robots, willow garage personal robot 2

DailyDirt: Robots Doing The Heavy Lifting

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Robots are cool in so many ways. People usually think of them as huge machines that are clumsy and awkward. However, robots come in all sizes nowadays — and they’re getting smaller while still being able to do some tough jobs. Bots aren’t just vacuuming our floors. They’ll soon do a lot more tasks autonomously and replace a lot of physical labor. Here are just a few examples of robots pulling (sometimes more than) their weight.

There’s a European robot project, Autonomous Vehicle Emergency Recovery Tool (AVERT), designing robots that can maneuver under a parked car, lift it up and move it someplace else by remote control. These robots only lift a car about an inch off the ground, and they’re supposed to help police and/or security teams to move suspicious cars to safer locations. But it might be nice to have autonomous bots re-park cars…. [url]
The Muscle Suit is a wearable suit — powered by compressed air that can help people lift heavy objects with minimal effort. It only weighs 12 pounds itself, takes less than a minute to put on, and is controlled.. by a mouthpiece. These kinds of supersuits come in several varieties, but this one is designed to be harmless to the wearer. [url]
Tiny robots that weigh several grams can pull over a hundred times their own weight. The trick for these bots is a gecko-inspired sticky material combined with an inchworn-like movement. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: autonomous bots, autonomous vehicle emergency recovery tool, avert, bio-inspired locomotion, biomimicry, muscle suit, robots, wearables

DailyDirt: More Nature-Inspired Materials

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Lots of cool materials have been inspired by biological materials — like velcro and surfaces with lotus leaf-like structures. Nature has had a headstart of a few hundred million years to create some useful materials, so it’s a great (and open) source of inspiration for new human-made materials that might further improve upon the stuff we already have. Here are just a few more examples of biomimicry that could be everywhere in the near future.

There’s a type of beetle (Tmesisternus isabellae) that has a color-changing ability based on the interaction of humidity with nanostructures on its forewings. A color-changing pigment inspired by this beetle can be made with colloidal photonic crystals, and these materials resist color fading or bleaching better than traditional dyes and pigments — and could be used in anti-counterfeiting inks. [url]
The Venus’ flower basket sea sponge grows very strong cable-like hairs, called spicules, to anchor these creatures to the sea floor. These spicules are made of nested glass fibers and demonstrate the advantage of these microstructural details for optimizing material strength. [url]
A new lightweight bulletproof vest design could look like fish scales, covering a body with a protective layer that allows the wearer to still move freely. Scale armor isn’t new, but 3D printing the scales and coming up with optimal protective structures could make a better kind of personal armor. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: 3d printing, anti-counterfeiting, beetle, biomimicry, bulletproof, colloidal photonic crystals, ink, materials, scale armor, spicules, tmesisternus isabellae

DailyDirt: The Strongest Natural Materials

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Mother Nature is actually really good at making some impressively strong and tough materials. Kevlar and steel are pretty strong and useful, but there are a few natural materials that are stronger. Spider silk has been a synthetic target for decades, but being able to create just the spider silk protein isn’t enough to make super strong fibers. Spiders actually produce different kinds of silk for different purposes with different mechanical properties, and the process of spinning spider silk isn’t easy to duplicate without using spiders. If we’re going to use less “plastic” in the future, we might need to figure out how to re-create some unique natural materials.

The strongest natural material was previously thought to be spider silk, but the teeth of a type of mollusk (a limpet) is apparently stronger — with a very high tensile strength that exceeds spider silk and Kevlar. Limpet teeth consist of protein packed with nanofibers of a mineral called goethite, and this composite material has a unique ability to maintain its strength regardless of its size — usually larger structures tend to break more easily than smaller ones because they contain more flaws. [url]
Tough seashells and corals are made of calcium carbonate, and it’s been a mystery how this material forms — but a piece of the puzzle has been found. Calcium carbonate can take the form of calcite or aragonite (and usually crystallizes into aragonite in seawater), but when the concentration of magnesium is reduced or eliminated, only calcite will form. If researchers can generalize the ability to predict crystal structure formation, it could have practical applications for a variety of material science problems. [url]
Spider silk is often cited as being “stronger than steel” with possible applications for bulletproof vests or other amazing things. The problem is actually making spider silk on a large scale — which means making the silk without growing a massive number of spiders. Various methods have been tried, such as using genetically modified bacteria, goats, silkworms, and alfalfa to produce strong silk fibers, but so far, we haven’t quite been able to reproduce desirable spider silk fibers without using spiders. (There is at least one commercial use of spider silk, but it’s used as a powder, not a fiber, for cosmetics.) [url]