Robo-roaches to find trapped earthquake victims

Swarms of robot cockroaches could be released to find earthquake victims. A new breed of “Cyber Roaches” are currently being developed by scientists, allowing them to fit through the tiniest gaps in rubble to find trapped survivors. 

 

Cockroaches are probably the last thing you would want trapped with you under bricks and sand after a massive earthquake, however, robot insects have been developed by leading institutes such as Harvard and the University of California that will be deployed to find survivors trapped under rubble. 

 

To develop these “Cyber roaches” scientists first had to study the actual physical movement of live specimens, to uncover facts on how they manage to squeeze through the tiniest of spaces while still keeping their speed and agility. 

 

Cockroaches are known to squeeze through gaps smaller than 3 millimetres, flattening themselves in half by repositioning their limbs and maintaining their speed. "If there are lots of cracks and vents and conduits, you can imagine just throwing a swarm of these robots in to locate survivors and safe entry points for first responders. “Professor Robert Full, of University of California, Berkeley. “What's impressive about these cockroaches is that they can run as fast through a quarter-inch gap as a half-inch gap, by reorienting their legs completely out to the side," said study leader Dr Kaushik Jayaram, of Harvard University. "They're about half an inch tall when they run freely, but can squish their bodies to one-tenth of an inch - the height of two stacked pennies."

 

Inspired by the roach physical changes, Jayaram created a modest and relatively cheap robot the size of a palm, that can similarly spread-out its legs when squashed, covered in hard durable plastic. 

 

The Compressible Robot with Articular Movement, named CRAM, was able to squeeze through gaps less than half its actual stature. "In the event of an earthquake, first responders need to know if an area of rubble is stable and safe, but the challenge is, most robots can't get into rubble," said Professor Robert Full, of University of California, Berkeley.

 

"But if there are lots of cracks and vents and conduits, you can imagine just throwing a swarm of these robots in to locate survivors and safe entry points for first responders."

 

"This is only a prototype, but it shows the feasibility of a new direction using what we think is the most effective models for soft robots, that is, animals with exoskeletons.

 

“Insects are the most successful animals on earth. Because they intrude nearly everywhere, we should look to them for inspiration as to how to make a robot that can do the same."

 

Research has been on going over the past 30 years, with the aim of trying to understand how nature “naturally” helps creatures move in forms of gliding, running, crawling or slither from place to place. 

 

Some other creations include robots with crab like legs and sticky feet found on geckos. Roaches where filmed running at high speeds through tiny gaps, less than the thinnest part of the body. By narrowing the slits, Dr Jayaram discovered that they could slip through slits of one-tenth of an inch when they really needed to.

 

While squashed, they cannot use their feet correctly, hence the use of sensory spines found on their tibia to push against the ground. 

"They have to use different body parts to move in these spaces, because their legs and feet are not oriented to work properly," Dr Jayaram. "But they are still capable of generating the large forces necessary for locomotion, which blew my mind."