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Team of Six Tiny Microrobots Pulls a Car

A team of researchers from the Biomimetic Dexterous Manipulation Laboratory at Stanford University have taken their inspiration from ants that work as teams to move massive objects. They observed that the ants get great cooperative force by each using three of their six legs simultaneously. With careful consideration to robot gait, they demonstrate a team of six μTug microrobots weighing 100 grams pulling an unmodified 3,900-lb car on polished concrete. Part of this success is from the usage of a special adhesive that was inspired by gecko toes.

Topics:
Automation Automotive Coatings & Adhesives Materials Motion Control Robotics

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    Transcript

    00:00:03 scientists love studying ants known for their impressive strength ants can lift over 100 times their own weight here a swarm of ants works together as a team to move a giant millipede with no space to grab on to the ants make strong chains by grabbing on to each other here at Stanford University we're interested in learning about how tiny things move objects much larger than

    00:00:26 themselves using a special adhesive inspired by gecko toes our micro robots can move objects over 2,000 times their own weight the question is like ants can our robots work together to accomplish great things some micro robots like these move forward in jerky jolts their forces are strong but short like the quick feet of a drum so they don't overlap much and don't work well

    00:00:51 together 20 robots only apply two times the force of a single robot running robots like this one apply forces over a longer period of time although the forces individually aren't very strong they overlap with each other more easily so teamwork is better after a series of experiments we found that the best way for robots to work together as a team was to use a very long very slow but

    00:01:19 very steady winching gait like our team of micro robots here with near-perfect teamwork and impressive individual strength this team of six micro tugs weighing only 100 grams move the author's unmodified 3,900 pound 1,800 kilogram car and driver shown here at 20 times speed