蜘蛛机器人

If you are afraid of spiders look away now. Meet one of the newest additions to the worldwide robot family, the spider robot.

This lightweight robot with its eight legs and an unmistakable spider shape has been developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation, or IPA, in Stuttgart, Germany.

Because of the spider-shaped design, four of the robot's legs remain constantly on the ground, while the other four move forward, giving the robot greater stability.

The robot contains very little in regards to electronics and none of the hard mechanics found in most other robots. Instead, it is made of plastic and powered by compressed air. The air is pumped into its artificial limbs, which makes them stretch and move the robot forward. It also makes the robot extremely lightweight.

Jannis Breuninger, product developer at Fraunhofer IPA, says powering the robot with air also means it can be operated almost anywhere.

"Compressed air in general exists everywhere. It's available everywhere. This means that we can operate the spider anywhere with a simple air pump."

IPA researchers have calculated that each spider robot costs about 500 euros to produce, far less than most other robot designs.

And, because the robots are cheap and easy to produce, they can quickly be made for emergencies such as after an earthquake when hundreds of robots may be needed to help search for survivors.

The robots can be equipped with cameras to send live video back to a control room. Breuninger says this is also when the spider-shaped design becomes important.

"The walking robot is suitable for usage in catastrophe areas. Because it has very stable motion, that means that we can operate in very rough terrain."
As the robots are extremely cheap to make, they can be made to explode, quite literally.

Breuninger says hundreds of robots can be manufactured with very little investment and sent into areas with landmines.

"We could also use the robot for mine searching. Because of the cheap production, we can produce huge numbers that can walk over mines and trigger the detonation devices. So, the robots would effectively be doing mine clearing."

Originally a student project, the robot was created using a generative production technology, also know as a 3-D printing process.

In the 3-D printer layers of fine polyamide-12, powder is applied and then melted by a laser beam. The process is repeated until one complete part of the robot-such as a leg-has been created.

Assembling the different parts is easy. The 3-D printing process also means that complex structures can be created quickly.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.