SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Nature-Inspired Robots Swim, Crawl and Scuttle Like Animals
from the Christian Science Monitor
When it comes to designing a new robot, some scientists are finding a visit to the zoo more helpful than hours spent at the drawing board. Rather than invent new ways for a robot to navigate a forest or crowded city street, they are copying how animals already do it.
If the goal is to make robots capable of surviving any environment, then nature almost always provides a template, says Joseph Ayers, a professor of biology at Northeastern University in Boston. "Animals have evolved to operate in every environment," he says.
The movement is part of an emerging field known as biomimetics, which takes designs from the natural world and applies them to everything from architecture to textiles.
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