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Seahorse's Armored Tail Could Lead to Flexible, Robust Robotics

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego were seeking bioinspiration for stronger, lighter, and more flexible materials by examining the armor of animals like armadillos and alligators. Specifically, they were looking for an animal that was flexible enough to develop a design for a robotic arm. They discovered that the tail of a seahorse can be compressed to about half its size before permanent damage occurs. The tail's structure is comprised of bony, protective plates that slide past each other. The researchers plan on using 3D printing to create artificial bony plates, which would then be equipped with polymers to act as muscles. Their final goal is to build a robotic arm that would be a hybrid between hard and soft robotic devices. A strong, flexible robotic gripper could be used for medical devices and unmanned bomb detection.

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Automation Defense Manufacturing & Prototyping Materials Medical Motion Control Plastics Robotics

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    Transcript

    00:00:00 seahorses are unique in that they have a head like a horse a long tubular snout like an an eater prehensile tail like a monkey a broad pouch like a kangaroo camouflage skin like a flounder and eyes that move independently like a chameleon we study the prehensile tail because it's uh gripping and grasping ability and it's protected by the natural armor so the tail is composed of four bony

    00:00:23 plates that surround a central vertebrae and uh what's unique about this is that the Bony plates uh have the sliding mechanisms where they are able to slide in and out of each other as all the segments are connected it allows the tail to be able to bend and twist and then also in deoration the plates can slide past each other like this which protects the central vertebrae from

    00:00:47 being compressed that sliding mechanism is what gives the tail its prehensile capability and also its ability to twist and bend so the tail can be compressed to half of its thickness without the vertebrae actually fracturing no one's really looked at the tail and the bones in particular as a source of armor most seahorse Predators capture their prey by crushing crabs using claws fish and

    00:01:09 turtles using beaks Rays using crushing plates this helps protect the seahorse from its natural predators [Music]