Snake monster lizard? Scientists develop amphibious robots that can "run" on the water sur

2024-02-28

The Basilisk Lizard is also known as the Jesus Christ Lizard because it can run on water. A new version of an existing robot can also do the same thing, and it can also traverse rugged terrain. Developed by a team from Ben Gurion University in Israel, AmphiSTAR, inspired by snake lizards, is a new member of the STAR robot family at the university.

The characteristic of the initial FSTAR (Flying Sprawl Tuned Autonomous Robot) robot is the adjustable angle of the arm, with wheels on one side and propellers on the other. This setting allows it to roll along the ground like a car or fly like a quadcopter.

The subsequent RSTAR (Rising Sprawl Tuned Autonomous Robot) robot retained the circular wheels on one side, but replaced the propeller with a non spoke wheel on the other side. It uses circular wheels to move on flat terrain, but actually flips itself over, using spoke wheels to drive on rough and uneven ground.

The AmphisTAR, which is the size of a palm, retains a leg style deployable arm and is now equipped with a total of four propellers - two at the bottom of each arm. When moving on surfaces such as grass or gravel, the angle of the arm makes the propeller blades function like RSTAR's boundless spokes, digging and pulling the robot forward. This configuration allows it to crawl at a high speed of 3.6 meters per second.

After reaching the water, it continued to use the propeller, and now the angle of the propeller allows it to run on the water surface at a speed of 1.5 meters per second. That is to say, it can also move on the water surface in a slower and more boat like manner, maintaining its buoyancy with a pair of buoyancy tanks. The future plan includes equipping it with the ability to swim underwater.

"We envision AmphiSTAR for agricultural, search and rescue, and mining applications that require both crawling and swimming," said Dr. David Zarrouk, director of the Bioinspired and Medical Robotics Laboratory at the university.

The robot was showcased last week through an online conference on intelligent robots and systems.

Original title: Inspired by snake monsters and lizards, scientists create amphibious robots that can "run" on the water surface

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