Engineers Design Coffee-Filled Boots That Help Robots Walk Faster
UCSD Jacobs researchers have developed flexible feet that enable bots to walk up to 40% faster on uneven terrain like rocks and wood chips.
Engineers from the University of California San Diego have created boots that allow robots to walk 40% faster on uneven terrain, even those covered in rocks and wood chips. We humans take a lot for granted, especially walking. We can stroll along on nearly any terrain just by utilizing some muscles without even thinking in some cases. Still, it’s not the same for robots, which are usually designed to traverse on one or two different mediums.
To overcome the problem, the team developed special boots using a flexible latex sphere filled with loose coffee grounds and a plant root inspired internal structure. When walking, the lifted legs remain soft and pliable, but when on the ground and conforming to the terrain contours, they become stiff. The process is known as “granular jamming,” wherein the granular medium (in this case coffee) can behave like a solid and a liquid.
The granular jamming process can be done passively, by just using the weight of the robot itself, or actively, by using vacuum pumps to draw the air out of the boot. This enables the boots to conform to different terrain, including maintaining a sphere shape (no obstacles) or transitioning to different shapes for flat obstacles, and small and rocky ones.
The engineers tested their boot design using a hexapod robot and found that walking on pebbles and wood chips allowed it to travel 40% faster than when using its standard rigid feet. They state they plan on outfitting the bottom of the boots with sensors to garner data on the ground before each foot hits the ground to better transition to different surfaces.