Inspenet, August 6, 2023.
Shivam Chopra’s team, from the University of California at San Diego, United States, has developed a robot that moves under the sand.
[post_relacionado]According to the researchers, this robot is the only known robot capable of advancing to a depth of 12 centimeters in the sand. Its speed is 1.2 millimeters per second, which is equivalent to about 4 meters per hour. Although it may seem slow compared to the robots in the movies, it is a speed similar to that of subterranean animals such as earthworms.
The robot moves using two front limbs equipped with force sensors at their tips, allowing it to sense obstacles while in motion. This achievement represents a significant advance in the field of underground robotics and opens possibilities for the exploration of difficult environments such as sand.
The robot has the ability to operate autonomously, without requiring external cables for power supply or data transfer. Communication with the robot is done through a Wi-Fi connection .
The challenge behind the robot that moves under the sand
Robots moving under sand face significant challenges, dealing with stronger forces than robots moving on land, air, or water, and are more susceptible to damage.
Despite this, locomotion under sand offers advantages such as the ability to inspect grain silos, measure contaminants in the subsoil, explore the seabed, investigate other worlds and carry out search and rescue operations in areas affected by landslides. , avalanches and similar situations.
The robotics team at the University of California, San Diego have put many hours of work into the development of this robot . The main challenge was to find the best way for a robot to move under the sand. Sand presents unique challenges due to the friction between its grains, which generates significant forces; the difficulty in detecting obstacles, such as stones, and their variable behavior, alternating between a liquid and solid state depending on the context.
The next step in this line of research and development, with the support of the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research, is to improve the speed of the robot and facilitate its ability to dig into the sand to submerge under it, as well as emerge again to the surface.
The technical details of the advances made in this robot model have been exposed by Chopra and his team in the academic journal Advanced Intelligent Systems, with the title “Toward robotic sensing and swimming in granular environments using underactuated appendages”.
Source: https://noticiasdelaciencia.com/art/47359/robot-que-se-desplaza-bajo-la-arena