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07.05.2013

The Coolest and Most Terrifying Biomimetic Robots

Building a better bot sometimes means looking outside the shop for inspiration. Borrowing from the characteristics and abilities of insects, birds, fish and mammals, scientists and engineers have designed robots that can swimjumpsnuggle, and steal books.

Some guy in Japan even built an 11-meter-long, smoke-blowing contraption inspired by a rhinoceros beetle.

Here are a few of the most awesome and most terrifying biomimetic robots around.

Spiderbot

Inspiration: Arachnids 

What's Cool About It: Wearable, personal space defending, anti-creep device.

Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht and Austrian software developer Daniel Schatzmayr have taken shoulder pads to a new extreme with The Robotic Spider Dress. Much to our delight, this biomimetic fashion statement crawled onto the catwalk earlier this year. With its combination of sensors and animated legs, the dress protects wearers from objects that might get too close. Don't mess with this dress, people.

Video: Anouk Wipprecht/YouTube

Robo-Ants

Inspiration: Argentine ants 

What's Cool About It: Pathfinding bots that learn from one another.

Each of these ant-mimicking robots is named Alice – and the colony of the sugar cube-size machines is called "The Alices." Together, the roboants work to find and learn the most efficient path through an obstacle course – much as real ants do, when they're on the move.

As described in March in PLOS Computational Biology, the Alices use light (instead of chemical pheromones) to mark their route. Light-detecting antennae search for the illuminated botsteps of previous Alices, which leave a blazing trail through the maze. As more and more bots travel the same road, it becomes brighter and brighter, eventually helping direct the entire colony from point Ant to point Bot.

Video: NewsInWorldNow/YouTube

Hummingbot

Inspiration: Hummingbird 

What's Cool About It: Slightly sinister.

Equipped with a video camera, this remote-controlled spybot is an accomplished hummingbird impostor. Agile and weighing about as much as a AA battery, the robot-in-disguise can fly, hover, and maneuver like a real hummingbird. Which is all good, except that hummingbirds aren't found much outside the Americas – which means that this DARPA-sponsored creation might stand out in more than a few places.

Developed by AeroVironment. Video: theworacle/YouTube

Caterbotter

What's Cool About It: Rolls into a ball and escapes robot-haters. 

Inspiration: Ballistic caterpillars

When threatened, some caterpillars will snap themselves into a wheel shape and roll away at astonishing speeds. For whatever reason, scientists from Tufts University decided to create a robot that could mimic the ballistic rolling action of these caterpillars.

We're glad they did. Made from pliant silicon rubber studded with shape memory coils, the 10-centimeter-long soft-bodied robot, called GoQBot, can curl into a ball and charge away in less than 100 milliseconds.

Zoom, zoom!

Video: InstituteofPhysics/YouTube

Bot Pack

Inspiration: Dogs, and a mule. 

What's Terrifying About It: Listening, following, cinder block-chucking.

In an earlier incarnation, headless BigDog the RoboMule merely stomped around, able to carry 340 pounds over rough terrain, uphill, going 4 miles per hour.

Then Boston Dynamics added a little bit of sinister bling: A fifth arm (head) that can throw stuff. Like, cinder blocks and stuff. How convenient.

But there are more members in the pack. AlphaDog can carry 400 pounds for 20 miles, and can even stand up after lying down.

Rat-Bot

Inspiration: Rats. 

What's Cool About It: Whisker-guided and adorable.

Instead of cameras, robo-rat uses its whiskers to navigate in the dark, much as real rats do. Moving back and forth at five times per second, the faux whiskers tell the robot – called SCRATCHbot – when it's approaching objects. Developed by a team at the Bristol Robotics Lab, the tailless rat is really rather adorable for a bright yellow metal version of a rodent.

Video: BristolRoboticsLab/YouTube

More...

Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/biomimetic-robots/




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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.

The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies. 

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A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.

The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.

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Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society

2015-2020

The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.

2020-2025

Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning  bodily life. Such technologies will  greatly enlarge  the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make  all  kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.

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This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive!  Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.

Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots  will become affordable  and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however:  humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover,  prerequisites for a large-scale  expansion into outer space will be created as well.

 

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