Building a robot is easy. Building a robot with soft, bendable parts is still doable. But building a soft robot “fish” that can swim as well as the real thing: a much trickier task.
Robots clean rivers and sort waste, monitor ecosystems, and inspect renewable-energy infrastructure. But even the greenest robot has an environmental footprint.
EPFL engineers have designed acoustic cavities that convert sound waves into thrust, propelling small robots and ultralight aerial vehicles without on-board actuators or electronics.