Ant-Roach robot takes the inflatable route

I would not have figured out that robots in the near future might actually be of the Marshmallow Man variety, that is, it is inflatable. Well, this pneubot known as Ant-Roach is a 15-foot long walking robot, where it was developed by the folks over at Otherlab as part of their “pneubotics” project. Of course, they did not make a stab at it alone, but rather, did work in tandem with Meka Robotics and Manu Prakash at Stanford University, obtaining a fair bit of funds from DARPA’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program.

The Ant-Roach robot will rely on textile-based, inflatable actuators which will contract upon inflation into specially-designed shapes that results in motion. As this robot is constructed using lightweight fabric-and-air structural members and is powered by pneumatics or hydraulics, you will be able to experience a rather large strength-to-weight ratio. Tipping the scales at under 70 lbs, the Ant-Roach is more than capable of supporting up to 10 times its own weight, now how about that? I wonder when will something like the Ant-Roach be turned into a commercial childrens’ toy.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: Robot, Robotics, Robots