An unlikely hero is set to make its debut in a future disaster. It will have the power to resist loads several hundred times more than its weight and contract its body to a quarter of its original size. It is, however, repulsive as this particular hero takes the form of cockroach.
Scientists at the University of California Berkeley took inspiration from cockroaches in their goal to develop a minirobot that can carry out rescue operations during disasters such as an earthquake. The insects' strength, size and agility have been identified as critically useful in searching and rescuing people trapped in closed spaces such as collapsed building, for example.
Cockroaches "seem to be able to go anywhere," Robert Full, co-author of a study about the prototype cockroach robot, said in a New York Daily News report. "I think they're really disgusting and really revolting, but they always tell us something new."
Particularly, researchers want to mimic the roach's ability to enter spaces that are smaller than its sizes. A key principle that they learned is that the insect does not use its feet to move in these environs since it employs an unrecorded form of locomotion that uses the spine on the tibia of its leg to move, ABC News reported. The researchers also borrowed from the properties of the cockroach's exoskeleton, which can withstand up to 900 times it body weight without suffering any injury.
The researchers now plan to build a prototype they dubbed Compressible Robot with Articulated Mechanisms (CRAM), which will have origami-like exoskeleton and soft legs that will allow it to move swiftly and handle heavy loads both in open and confined spaces.
The details of this project have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
