Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2012, covering the groundbreaking development of the ‘Meshworm’ soft robot by an international team of researchers.
A highly unique new soft robot deeply inspired entirely by the natural motion of common earthworms has been successfully innovated by a collaborative team of leading researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, and Seoul National University.
Development and Funding
Prominent researchers confidently say the flexible soft robot could heavily find numerous vital applications in the near future. This complex international research was massively supported financially by the United States Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).
Closely similar to the complex biological muscle fibres of a living earthworm, the skilled researchers creatively used a highly conductive coiled nickel-titanium wire firmly wrapped tightly around a soft, flexible tube mesh. Then, they safely fixed a very light tiny battery and a small, complex circuit board directly inside the hollow body to accurately generate electrical current specifically to actively heat the metallic tube precisely at particular mapped segments.
How Meshworm Moves
The clever physical principle firmly behind it is that exactly when the specific heated segment of the coiled tube reaches safely beyond a certain high temperature, the metallic coil of wire rapidly contracts, and that quickly leads directly to a steady forward motion exactly like a real earthworm. The brilliant researchers carefully created complex digital algorithms to flawlessly control the subtle motions of the robot simply by carefully controlling the exact heating and rapid cooling of the coiled wire.
The flexible soft robot is also successfully tested with extra steering wires safely running entirely along its full length, easily allowing it to safely move seamlessly rightwards and leftwards accordingly. Though it slowly inches safely forward, naturally making the overall locomotion quite slow and perfectly steady, the tiny robot could easily go completely undetected safely even in incredibly small hidden spaces through which current rigid robots simply can’t physically explore.
Biological Inspiration: Peristalsis
This totally unique physical motion, also naturally seen heavily in living snails and sea cucumbers, is scientifically called “peristalsis.” These fascinating biological organisms constantly rhythmically squeeze and violently stretch their soft muscles alternatively specifically to move around and to firmly push consumed food directly down to their stomach.
Exactly like real earthworms, the advanced robot is incredibly soft and safely moves in a very completely silent way. In the released demonstration video, the proud researchers clearly proved the incredible physical capability of the tough robot to safely continue steadily in its forward motion safely even when it is violently stepped heavily upon or physically hit hard directly with a heavy hammer.
The advanced soft robot has been aptly named “Meshworm” perfectly as per its highly unique physical design and crawling motion. Can you vividly imagine a bizarre future, where completely different types of artificial robotic creatures are constantly quietly crawling safely in our modern streets?
Credits: MIT, Harvard University, Seoul National University
