Fastest-turning legged robot uses tail to take corners

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

We recently showed you a speedy cardboard cockroach, ranked as one of the fastest robots in the world. But its tailed relative is equally impressive: it can turn precisely without slowing down, allowing it to corner more rapidly than any other legged robot to date.

Developed by Nick Kohut and colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, the robot swings its tail to alter course at a variety of angles. This video shows how it can swiftly do a 360- or 180-degree turn, take a corner and even meander on rocky terrain when its tail is actuated.

As its tail turns one way, its body moves in the opposite direction to compensate for the change in angular momentum, similar to what a lizard does in the air or on the ground. The tail must move quickly to overcome friction and turn the robot.

The tail is a carbon-fibre rod with a weight at the end, controlled by a tiny motor and bespoke gearbox. The team hopes to add position sensors to the tail to allow for more sophisticated control. Syncing up the movement of the left and right legs should also allow the robot to perform more consistently.

Small-legged robots are being developed for search and rescue, for situations where a location is inaccessible or too dangerous for humans.

This project was recently presented at the annual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference in San Francisco.

If you enjoyed this post, watch another robot use its tail to land like a lizard.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/27dd8003/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cnstv0C20A130C0A10Cfastest0Eturning0Elegged0Erobot0Euses0Etail0Eto0Etake0Ecorners0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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