MIT has developed a flexible robot that can glide like a snake.

Over the past few years, the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has developed a variety of powerful robots: some can fly like falcons, some can perch like pigeons, and others can swim like swordfish. Recently, Csail's list of robots has a more powerful robot that can glide like a snake.

At this week's IEEE/RSJ Robotics and Systems International conference, CSAIL researchers showed that a soft robotic arm would be developed. Inspired by Octopus Tentacles, the robotic arm is able to navigate in a narrow, tube-like environment without human manipulation.

The arm, assembled from a 3D print mold, is one of Csail's most recent projects, dedicated to developing soft robots that allow robots to be more flexible, resilient and adaptable to a variety of environments.

Traditional "hard" robots are limited by the disadvantages of connecting joints, they are not able to move in narrow spaces, and they must install particularly hard parts to deal with dangers such as collapsing buildings. But the flexible joint of a soft robot means that it can move freely in all kinds of environments, such as drilling fine tubes and changing directions. In addition, because the machine is flexible, it can cope with minor collisions and get environmental information through collisions.

But designing such a unique and powerful robot is not easy. To get a flexible value that allows a robot to adapt to a variety of environments, the team needs to do a lot of experiments and complex and sophisticated calculations.

"In order for the robot to be competent in various environments, we place it in different environments, perform complex computations and derive critical values for various environments." In addition, this so-called ' soft ' robot still needs some hard construction, such as high pressure brakes. To install such a hard thing on a robot that is as soft as chewing gum, you need to overcome a lot of difficulties. So, to successfully develop a truly powerful soft robot, we still have a long way to go. "said Marchese, head of the official.

In addition, Marchese said his research was designed to change the way people think about robots, rather than letting soft robots occupy the future. This harmless rubber-soft robot can ease human concerns as the robot becomes more and more common and the threat of robotics is rife.

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)