Be it a big Jellyfish like robot or a creepy looking record breaker or anything else, man has always tried to recreate what he sees around him. What the folks over at Festo were inspired by this time was the complex design of the dragonfly and the aerodynamic tricks it has been showing off for 300 million years. With that in mind, they created the BionicOpter.

The BionicOpter has a wingspan of 63 cm and measures 44 cm from tip to tail. It weighs just 175 g, made from aluminum, polyamide (sintered) and terpolymer (deep-drawn ABS), and each of its four wings, which can be turned up to 90 degrees from the horizontal, features a polyester membrane covering a carbon fiber frame.

It is equipped with an ARM microcontroller, inertia, acceleration and position sensors, servo motors, two LiPo batteries and a 2.4 GHz wireless module. The robot’s software and electronics take care of all the complex motion sequences and all that an operator on the ground has to do is control the steering. Everything put together and the BionicOpter moves up and down, forward and backward, and to the side with ease.

Check out the video below to see the robot in action. It’s certainly cool, but not as perfect as the one which nature has designed. The BionicOpter seems to be pretty shaky.

[Source]

The post BionicOpter Dragonfly Robot From Festo (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

This is one of the larger versions that they’ve created to date, measuring 5 feet 7 inches across and weighing 170 pounds. The project was funded by the US Navy, presumably because the military has some interest in using this technology for surveillance or other purposes, but the researchers see how this could be used effectively for ocean monitoring or the cleaning up of oil spills. An earlier version, called RoboJelly, was about the size of a human hand.

The Cyro robot itself has eight mechanical arms extending from its central water-sealed brain and then a silicone skin is laid on top of that. The movement of the Cyro is similar to that of a jellyfish, which is incredibly efficient. They hope that as they improve the design, the Cyro will be able to head out on its own for months at a time. Indeed, the larger the model, the longer the range it could have.

Check out the demo video below, which includes an interview with VT College of Engineering graduate student Alex Villanueva.

[Source]

The post Video: Cyro Jellyfish Drone Prepares to Invade the Oceans appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

What you see in the above picture is Robojelly, a robot jellyfish designed by the researchers at Virginia Tech, which could be very useful in the future for underwater surveillance or search and rescue operations. You might be thinking that there is nothing new about a robot inspired by nature, but the robot jellyfish has a new trick up its sleeve. Theoretically, the Robojelly will go on working without ever running out of energy, as long as it’s in water.

The Robojelly is powered by hydrogen and is made up of materials called shape-memory alloys. Just in case you are preparing to refer to Wikipedia, shape-memory alloys are materials which are capable of returning to their original shape when heat is applied. The robot mimics a jellyfish’s movements via eight moving segments wrapped in platinum-coated carbon nanotubes.

When the oxygen and hydrogen in the water react with platinum powder, heat will be produced. The alloys will change shape due to this heat and propulsion occurs all thanks to the opening and closing movements of the segments.

The research paper has been published in the journal of Smart Materials and Structures and the project was led by Yonas Tadesse. According to him, “To our knowledge, this is the first successful powering of an underwater robot using external hydrogen as a fuel source”.

In the video, you will find an electricity-powered version of the Robojelly swimming in a water tank. The hydrogen-powered robot needs more work to be done on it and has only been tested while it’s clamped to the tank’s bottom. They are currently working to increase its maneuverability.

So, this is a robot which can stay underwater for a very long time as it can refuel itself from the water around it. That’s certainly very innovative. And yeah, almost forgot, the research is US Navy-backed, and you know what that means. Enemy submarines beware!

[Image Source]

The post Robojelly: The Hydrogen-Powered Robot Jellyfish (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.