Insect-Inspired "Squishable" Robot Gets the Funding It Needs to Become a True Shapeshifter
2023's CLARI robot, which deforms to squeeze through small gaps, is to receive true shapeshifting capabilities — and wall climbing.
A team at the University of Colorado Boulder's Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering has received funding to further develop tiny, insect-inspired, "squishable" robots — which they hope will prove useful in spaces too small for traditional robots to fit.
"Robots could be really helpful in confined spaces," explains grant recipient Koushik Jayaram, assistant professor, of the work that has received an impressive $650,000 in funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF). "If they're small enough and adaptable enough and agile enough, they can get inside a jet engine, for example, or an underground conduit to inspect electrical pipelines."
The funding is to extend Jayaram's earlier work on compact, insect-inspired robots including mCLARI — a quadruped that fits on top of a quarter and weighs less than a single penny. In addition to scuttling around like its insectile inspiration, the robot can also change its shape in order to squeeze through narrow openings — something the scientist wants to improve into on-demand shapeshifting.
"If you want to be really fast, you can choose to be long and skinny," Jayaram explains of his vision. "If you want to be stable, then you can be wide. We need robots to be smart and shapeshift."
Jayaram's funding, provided through the NSF's Faculty Early Career Development program, follows a joint $1.4 million grant from the research wing of the US Air Force shared by Jayaram and Purdue University's Laura Blumenschein. The money will be used to develop a robot that can shapeshift under pulses of electricity — and which uses static electricity to walk up walls and along ceilings. The robot will also feature a network of sensors over its "skin," designed to allow it to map out its environment.
Jayaram has released an origami variant of an insectile robot, programmable using Python or the Arduino IDE, for educational use. "We want kids to not be afraid of computers, and we’re doing that using biology," he explains. "Because everybody loves bugs."
Main article image courtesy of Casey Cass/CU Boulder.
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