January 13, 2005
Biomimetic Robots
Stanford Professor Mark Cutkosky has been working on several areas of robotics over the past few years. He gives an interview to the Stanford Daily where he expounds the advantages of biomimetic robots that are modeled after insects.
Posted by elkaim at January 13, 2005 12:56 PMThere are some things that animals can do much better than humans, like climb walls and run very fast. The fastest cockroaches can run 55 body-lengths per second. Even the slower ones can do about 15 body lengths per second. If you could run at 55 body-lengths per second you’d be going about 55 mph.
Also, for the amount of intelligence that we’re actually able to put into small robots, insects are a much better target than mammals — let alone humans — in terms of behaviors and learning.
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Already, some bio-inspired robots are starting to make it into the field. One of our collaborators, Martin Buehler — who was formerly at McGill University and is now heading up a robotics group at Boston Dynamics Inc. — has a version of another hexapod [six-legged robot] called RHex that is being evaluated by the military.