Posted on 10/13/2017 5:22:27 PM PDT by BenLurkin
"Camouflaged robots may hide and be protected from animal attacks and may better approach animals for studying them in their natural habitats," Cecilia Laschi, a professor of biorobotics at the BioRobotics Institute of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, in Pisa, Italy, wrote in an accompanying article in the current issue of Science. "Of course, camouflage may also support military applications, where reducing a robot's visibility provides it with advantages in accessing dangerous areas," wrote Laschi, who wasn't involved in the current study.
The researchers, led by James Pikul of the University of Pennsylvania and Robert Shepherd of Cornell University, took inspiration from the 3D bumps, or papillae, that octopus and cuttlefish can inflate using muscle units in one-fifth of a second for camouflaging.
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The complement of papillae in a soft robot would be the air pockets, or "balloons," beneath the silicone skin. Often, these pockets get inflated at different times in different spots to generate locomotion in a robot. In the new research, this robotic inflation was taken a step further.
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By embedding small fiber-mesh spheres into the silicone, the scientists could control and shape the texture of the inflated surface, just as an octopus might retexture its skin.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
And you thought sharks with frickin’ lasers on their heads was scary!
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