Robots can serve pizza, crawl over alien planets, swimming such as octopuses and jellyfish, cosplay as people and even performing surgery. But can they walk on water?
Rhagobot is not exactly the first that comes to mind when mentioning a robot. Inspired by Rhagovelia Waterstriders, semiaquatic insects also known as wrinkle bugs, these small bots can slide over streams due to the robotization of an evolutionary adjustment.
Rhagovelia (Unlike other species of water), fan -like appendices have in the direction of the ends of their middle legs that passively open and close, depending on how the water moves underneath. That is why they seem to slide effortlessly over the surface of the water. Biologist Victor Ortega-Jimenez from the University of California, Berkeley, was intrigued by how such small insects can accelerate and subtract fast turns and other maneuvers, almost as if they are flying over a liquid surface.
“Rhagovelias Fan serves as an inspiring template for the development of self -murdering artificial propellers, which provides insights into their biological form and function, “he said in a study that was recently published in science.” Such configurations are largely unexplored in semi-aquatic robots. “
Powerful morphin '
It took Ortega-Jimenez five years to find out how the bugs come around. While Rhagovelia The senvilators were thought that they were dirty because they were driven by muscles, he discovered that the appendices automatically adapted to the surface tension and elastic forces underneath, open passively and open ten times faster than is necessary to blink. They immediately expand when they make contact with water and change shape, depending on the current.
By covering an extensive surface for their size and shape when the insects move their legs, Rhagovelia Fans generate a huge amount of propulsion. They also do double duty. Although they are stiff enough to resist the distortion when they are expanded, the fans are still flexible enough to collapse easily, while adhering to the claw above to prevent it from getting in the way of the animal when it is outside of water. It also helps that the insects have hydrophobic legs that repel water that they could otherwise weigh.
Ortega-Jimenez and his research team observed the leg fans using a scanning electron microscope. If they made a robot based on Ripple -Bugs, they had to know the exact structure what they were going for. After experimenting with cylindrical fans, the researchers discovered that Rhagovellia Fans are actually structures made from many flat barbules with barbules, something that was previously unknown.
