It moves like a plant, though indeed It looks a bit like a snake: it’s called FiloBot and it’s a robot capable of moving in the environment like creepers. More: developed in Genoa by the Italian Institute of Technology, it is also capable of build your own body yourself thanks to a 3D printing technique directly integrated within it.
The invention, which he also recently wrote about the scientific journal Science Robotics (Who) could find application in environmental monitoring and exploration of complex natural environments or difficult to reach.
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A robot that moves and rebuilds itself
Within IIT, the research was carried out by the group coordinated by Barbara Mazzolaiwhich last May he had spoken to us precisely about the advantages of so-called soft robotics, whose principles also inspire FiloBot. According to what was explained, the idea was born from the observation of plants and their environmental exploration strategies: in particular, the European GrowBot project, coordinated by Mazzolai, aimed to draw inspiration from creeperswhich show remarkable adaptive capabilities thanks to their flexible bodies.
These plants they move thanks to cell division and elongation, permitted by shoots and roots in response to external stimuli, such as light or gravity, and FiloBot was designed precisely so that it can build its own body by growing from one of its extremities (the one characterized by a sort of head). This functionality is made possible by a technique additive 3D printing that has been integrated into the robot itself: the material used is a thermoplastic that is laid out in the form of wire that revolves around the axis of the robot body. This technique should allow the robot to passively adapt its shape to the environment it comes into contact with, therefore exploiting the properties of the material it is made of and also copying the characteristics of the place where it is located.
What is the use of a robot like FiloBot?
FiloBot’s movement is guided by some environmental sensors that reproduce the sensory capabilities of climbing plants: the robot is able to feel the force of gravity and analyze the type of light that surrounds it, and consequently also actively determine the direction of growth. Exactly like plants do: “The sessile nature of plants leads us to think that they do not move, but instead move continuously in a targeted, effective and efficient way, only that they do so on a time scale not easily perceivable by the human being if not through observation tools such as timelapse – explained Mazzolai ed Emanuela Del Doctor, first author of the study published in Science – To move from one point to another, plants must continually grow and adapt their bodies to external environmental conditions. In light of this observation, we understood how apical growth is an important prerequisite for express a form of movement and adaptation in robots as in plants”.
The functionality contained in FiloBot allow it to move in unstructured environments in an adaptive way, reducing construction costs in terms of energy and use of material: these adaptation capabilities could prove valuable for monitoring environmental, to accompany operations patrol in complex environments, measure levels of pollution in hazardous areas, exploring natural environments or generally in applications where it is difficult to predict or pilot an exact path through land unknown and changing.
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