Bioinspired robot STAR

Researchers at the Biomimetic Millisystem Lab at UC Berkeley have developed a six legged, 12 cm long, bioinspired robot named STAR (Sprawl Tuned Autonomous Robot). The robot can vary its sprawl angle to adapt to different surfaces. From the video description:

The robot, can achieve legged performance over rough surfaces and obstacles, using a high sprawl angle, and nearly wheel-like performance over smooth surfaces for small sprawl angles. By changing the sprawl angle it can climb over obstacles or crawl underneath them. STAR can run at 5.2m/s (43 body lengths/second, Froude number 9.8) over a smooth surface which makes it the fastest untethered crawling robot.  

Check out the video below for the robot’s crawling performance.

Wolfgang Heller

Wolfgang Heller