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| DARPA Soft Robot |
Camouflage Robot's
If you’re worried about the coming robot apocalypse, then worry some more because soft, squishy robots just got camouflage. Scientists at Harvard University working under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract have developed a way of turning soft robots into “chameleons” capable of blending in with their backgrounds and even hiding from infrared sensors. That’s pretty impressive (or scary) for robots that can be made for less than US$100 apiece.
Led by Dr's. George Whitesides and Stephen Morin at Harvard University’s
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering, the Harvard team took nature as their
inspiration, modelling the robots on invertebrates that expand and
contract their bodies in order to move or change their appearance. Such soft robots have been gaining a lot of attention lately, but the Harvard soft-bots took another page from nature’s notebook.
In the Harvard soft-bots, this isn’t quite so sophisticated. The robots are constructed using a 3D printer to create the molds used in their manufacture. These molds have networks of micro channels impressed in them. One set of channels carry the air that makes the robot squirm about in a frighteningly lifelike manner and the other carries coloured fluid. When the robot walks over a surface, the appropriate pre-selected fluid is pumped in to match the surface and break up the pattern of the robot, making it less visible. The whole process takes less than 30 seconds and the silicone molds make the cost of each soft-bot only about US$100.
But the soft-bots’ camouflage isn’t confined to colour. The fluid can be heated or cooled to match whatever surface the robot is walking on, making it all but invisible to infrared detectors. In addition, the robot can aid search and rescue missions by making itself more visible rather than less by filling itself with brightly coloured, fluorescent or even bioluminescent fluids.
In the Harvard soft-bots, this isn’t quite so sophisticated. The robots are constructed using a 3D printer to create the molds used in their manufacture. These molds have networks of micro channels impressed in them. One set of channels carry the air that makes the robot squirm about in a frighteningly lifelike manner and the other carries coloured fluid. When the robot walks over a surface, the appropriate pre-selected fluid is pumped in to match the surface and break up the pattern of the robot, making it less visible. The whole process takes less than 30 seconds and the silicone molds make the cost of each soft-bot only about US$100.
But the soft-bots’ camouflage isn’t confined to colour. The fluid can be heated or cooled to match whatever surface the robot is walking on, making it all but invisible to infrared detectors. In addition, the robot can aid search and rescue missions by making itself more visible rather than less by filling itself with brightly coloured, fluorescent or even bioluminescent fluids.
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