Stanford University engineers have created a robot that can, like a bird, sit on a perch. The robot was attached to a quadcopter, and he was able to fly, catch objects in the air, carry them and land on various surfaces. The researchers hope that the system, which they called the stereotyped nature-inspired aerial grasper, or SNAG, will be useful for studying the environment.
The robot was inspired by parrots. The researchers let the birds fly from roost to roost made of a variety of materials, including wood, foam, sandpaper, and Teflon. The flights and landings of the parrots were recorded by cameras. According to William Roderick, lead author of the development, the birds performed the same maneuvers regardless of which surface they landed on. This boilerplate behavior was exemplified in the development of SNAG.
SNAG legs are based on peregrine falcon legs. The "bones" of the robot are 3D printed, and the muscles and tendons are replaced by motors and line. Each leg has two motors - one for forward and backward movement and the other for grip. Tendons in birds run around the ankle; a similar mechanism in the robot's leg absorbs the energy of collision with the surface upon landing and converts it into gripping force in 20 milliseconds. When the robot's legs wrap around a branch, the accelerometer on the right leg indicates that the robot has landed, and a balancing algorithm is triggered to stabilize it.
The authors tested SNAG in a laboratory in Oregon. They launched the robot on different surfaces at a given speed and orientation to see how it performed in different scenarios. Roderick also tested the robot's ability to catch objects thrown by hand. SNAG was able to catch a small training dummy, a sack of corn and a tennis ball. In addition, the robot has been successfully tested in the wild. Engineers attached a temperature and humidity sensor to the SNAG and used it to collect microclimate data in Oregon forests.
William Roderick notes that the robot has countless potential applications, including search and rescue operations and forest fire monitoring. however, he believes that one of the most interesting uses of SNAG is environmental research.
“Part of the motivation for this work was to create tools that we could use to explore the natural world. The emergence of a robot that acts like a bird opens up completely new ways to study the environment, "the researcher concluded.
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