“HARVARD RESEARCHERS CREATE WORLD’S FIRST ALL-SOFT ROBOT”
Researchers
at Harvard University have successfully created the world’s first-ever
fully autonomous soft robot. To emphasize, this is the first robot
created that does not use any hard components. The robot is
controlled by a pneumatic systems and is shaped like an octopus. Unlike
regular robots made of hard materials, this robot’s legs don’t propel it
and it isn’t governed by a computer. Instead, the legs just flop around
through an autonomous pneumatic system. This system is powered through
chemical reactions; gas from hydrogen peroxide pushes fluid through the
Ocotobot’s structure in a specific sequence which creates movement. “The struggle has always been in replacing rigid components like
batteries and electronic controls with analogous soft systems and then
putting it all together,” explained Wood in the Harvard news release.
“This research demonstrates that we can easily manufacture the key
components of a simple, entirely soft robot, which lays the foundation
for more complex designs.”
