Engineers at North Carolina State University have achieved a new record for the fastest moving soft robot. A team from the university's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department created a robot capable of moving 2.7 times its own body length each second, more than three times faster than the previous record of 0.8 times body length per second. 'We can switch between these stable states rapidly by pumping air into channels that line the soft, silicone robot. The team hopes their design could become the basis of an entirely new category of soft robots, which they call 'Leveraging Elastic instabilities for Amplified Performance' or LEAP. 'Potential applications include search and rescue technologies, where speed is essential, and industrial manufacturing robotics,' Yin says.

Source: Daily Mail May 09, 2020 00:05 UTC