Modeling robots after caterpillars

To build new robots, scientists need a proper muse. And now, a group of researchers at Tufts University is looking towards nature to find that inspiration. Just what did they focus in on? Caterpillars.

Caterpillars are unique in the way that they move, and scientists saw their efficient form of travel as something that could be beneficial for squishy, soft-bodied robots.

To model robots after caterpillars, researchers first had to study just how the insects move. To find out, the white-striped tobacco hornworms were put on miniature treadmills, and were X-rayed as they walked. What scientists found was that their guts propelled forwards before the rest of their bodies did. The caterpillars’ guts actually lessened in length just before they would stretch out and move ahead.

In a way, the caterpillar is like an engineering mechanism. The Boston Globe article states that the caterpillar’s gut acts like a piston in the scheme of the body as a machine. This is because, like some other creatures such as leeches, caterpillars’ guts are “attached to the caterpillar at the front and back, but [are] only loosely tethered in the middle.”

Research also showed that caterpillars travel with the same conduct whether they are moving on level ground, or up vertically.

So what does all this have to do with robots? Scientists think that constructing soft-robots after caterpillars would make for efficient movement. The fact that they move the same even when vertical also suggests a sense of antigravity. That aspect of their natural design could be translated to robots that could be used in space.

Huai-Ti Lin, a graduate student at Tufts, has designed many soft-bodied robots, and has had such success that the Pentagon’s research arm, called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), has supported his work. iRobot is working with the DARPA to design robots that have the flexibility to maneuver around in places unsuitable for average hard-bodied robots.

And it seems that the best robots for the job would be ones modeled after none other than the common caterpillar.