When robotics meets Darwin, it gives damn astonishing machines that are inspired by millions and millions of years of evolution in order to solve various and varied technical problems.
Welcome to the fascinating world of Bio-inspired robots !
Indeed, at the CNRS in Marseille, it does not just drink little yellow but it works hard, with a team of researchers who decided to take nature as a model to create smarter, more efficient and less energy -energy robots.
Their strategy? Observe Gérard Larcher How animals naturally solve complex problems and adapt these solutions in robotic version. And it is formidable because they have already developed a robot-fourmi which sails without GPS and a mini-drone which flies like a bird.
But then why bother to copy nature when we already have robots that are a hit? Well imagine that nature is a few lengths ahead of us because after millions of years of R&D (understanding of evolution), animals have developed hyper efficient and economic solutions in terms of energy.
Take them desert ants for example & mldr; These tiny insects can travel kilometers under a blazing sun, then return in a straight line to their nest without ever getting lost. No GPS, no card, no panels “Funner 2km, next outing”& Mldr; Just a few neurons and eyes all that is basic.
And that’s exactly what inspired the first robot of the French team: Antbot. This is a Hexapod of 2.3 kg Also available by car (Antar), who copies the genius of the Cataglyphis ant, a champion of the orientation who lives in the Sahara. To find its way without olfactory track (heat destroys pheromones), this desert ant is used solar compass And counts his steps while analyzing the scrolling of the landscape.
The researchers then reproduced these tips with simplified sensors, namely, an electronic “celestial compass” sensitive to the polarization of light (like the eyes of the ant) and a minimalist optical sensor of & MLDR; Only 12 pixels! Yes, you have read correctly, 12 pixels. It’s all zero as a resolution but that’s enough for the robot to estimate the distance traveled by observing the optical flow from the ground.
And the result is frankly impressive because Antbot can explore his environment and then find his starting point with an accuracy of about 1 cm after a 14 -meter journey. And all this without GPS, without wi-fi, without external infrastructure & mldr; Just with its own sensors and bio-inspired algorithms.
But CNRS researchers did not stop there. Their second prototype tackles an even more complex challenge: flight.
X-Flytheir mini-drone of 10 grams does not look like classic quadricopters with their buzzing propellers. No, beats wings like a little bird or a butterfly, between 10 and 20 times per second. We call it a ornithopterand it is much more difficult to control than a normal drone.
The great strength of X-Fly is therefore its biomimetic flight Because unlike propeller drones which must constantly consume energy to stay in the air, X-Fly can hover between two wing beats, as a bird would. More economical, quieter, he can also make impossible maneuvers for classic drones such as tight turns or loopings worthy ofAce Combat. To guide this little prodigy, the researchers had to develop steering algorithms Specific which adjust in real time the flexion of the wings and the orientation of the tail and the laboratory tests are promising !!
X-Fly can fly in a circle or even draw an eight in the air, in a completely autonomous way. So for the moment, the robot Oiseau needs external cameras to find his way, but the team is already working to board miniature sensors directly to make it completely independent.
Now you wonder what these funny mechanical critters can be used for?
Well, the potential applications are numerous and exciting. Antbot, with its six legs and its autonomous navigation, would be perfect for exploring rugged terrains where the robots with wheels are struggling: areas disaster after an earthquake, rocky terrains, and why not the surface of Mars?
As for X-Fly, its small size and its silent flight make it an ideal candidate for environmental surveillance or research and rescue missions. Imagine a swarm of these mini-drones traveling a dense forest in search of lost hikers, or exploring the interior of a collapsed building to locate survivors & mldr; It would be phew!
Beyond these direct applications, the principles developed for these robots could transform other areas & mldr; For example, algorithms of Minimalist navigation D’Antcar already interest the designers of autonomous vehicles & mldr; Our cars without a driver could then do without GPS and ultra-precise cartography. Likewise, understanding how a bird stabilizes its flight could inspire new devices for the aviation sector, more fuel economical.
Of course, the road is still long before seeing these robots in action outside the laboratory. Antar only works by day (he needs the polarized light of the sky), and X-Fly must still face the turbulence of the real world. But these works show that to move forward, technology must also know how to look at what nature has been doing for millions of years.
Because despite all our technological progress, and our growing energy needs, nature remains once again our best source of inspiration, and by combining biology and engineering, these CNRS researchers open the way to a frugal roboticssmarter, more economical and perhaps also more respectful of our environment.
Source link
Subscribe to our email newsletter to get the latest posts delivered right to your email.
Comments