Four-legged robots like Boston Dynamics’ Spot and Cheetah owe almost all their agility to fancy footwork. While they may visually move much like their mammalian counterparts, the anatomical inspirations largely stop at their legs. In biology, however, a quadrupedal animal’s movement, flexibility, and intricate motor functions stem almost entirely from its spine. Replicating that complex system of stacked vertebrae in robots is much more difficult than the legs—but if artificial spines could be integrated into such designs, engineers could open up entirely new avenues of precise maneuverability.
[Related: A new tail accessory propels this robot dog across streams.]
Now, engineers are reportedly a few steps further towards spine-centric quadruped bots thanks to a research team’s very uncanny, rodent-inspired robot. Writing in Science Robotics on Wednesday, collaborators across Germany and China have unveiled NeRmo, a biomimetic, four-legged robot that relies on a novel motor-tendon framework to scurry its way around environments.
As far as looks go, NeRmo mirrors a mouse’s skeletal system—although the ears, although cute, are likely superfluous. The robot’s rigid front half houses its electronics systems, while its latter half functions much as an actual flexible spine would, with four lumbar and lateral joints. Artificial tendons thread through the spine as well as the robot’s elbow and knee joints allow NeRmo even more mouselike movements alongside quicker turning times.
According to collaborators at the Technical University of Munich, University of Technology Nuremberg, and China’s Sun Yat-Sen University, NeRmo’s tendon-pulley system precludes the need for any musculature while still allowing for smooth flexion capabilities across the lateral and sagittal planes,…
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