[Nature Communications] Snail-inspired robotic swarms
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- čas přidán 28. 04. 2024
- Authors: Da Zhao, Haobo Luo, Yuxiao Tu, Chongxi Meng, Tin Lun Lam
Corresponding author: Tin Lun Lam (Email: tllam@cuhk.edu.cn; Website: sites.google.com/site/lamtinlun )
Published in: Nature Communications
Paper: doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47...
Freeform Robotics: freeformrobotics.org
Title:
Snail-inspired robotic swarms: a hybrid connector drives collective adaptation in unstructured outdoor environments
Abstract:
Terrestrial self-reconfigurable robot swarms offer adaptable solutions for various tasks. However, most existing swarms are limited to controlled indoor settings, and often compromise stability due to their freeform connections. To address these issues, we present a snail robotic swarm system inspired by land snails, tailored for unstructured environments. Our system also employs a two-mode connection mechanism, drawing from the adhesive capabilities of land snails. The free mode, mirroring a snail's natural locomotion, leverages magnet-embedded tracks for freeform mobility, thereby enhancing adaptability and efficiency. The strong mode, analogous to a snail's response to disturbance, employs a vacuum sucker with directional polymer stalks for robust adhesion. By assigning specific functions to each mode, our system achieves a balance between mobility and secure connections. Outdoor experiments demonstrate the capabilities of individual robots and the exceptional synergy within the swarm. This research advances the real-world applications of terrestrial robotic swarms in unstructured environments. - Věda a technologie
hahaha the last choice of photo to go with "we hope this research can propell the research of robotic swarms" was a future for the planet I don't think anyone has visualized quite like this before
It’s the Future 😢
Planning for the post-apocalypse!
Isaac Asimov's Robot City series. 6 books. 1987-1988
"Meanwhile, the city is growing and changed at an alarming rate. Buildings literally change right before their eyes. Derec learns the material the robots and the city itself is made of is the same highly advanced material that the robots of the asteroid he woke up on were made of"
Yeah, I wasn't expecting the terminators to be so darn cute
Came here for the science, stayed for the post-apocalyptic snail robots
Never in my life have I ever thought of robot snails assembling like the power rangers to roll over rough terrain or grip objects like a claw arm.
O sos muy joven o muy poco creativo.
@@FernandoFarina-lj8isAverage internet boomer:
That's the magic of the Dr. Octopus arm. You just wanted another human prosphetic, but after months of testing and adding a bunch of extras you decide "screw it, three apposable claws and a multitool that bend in any direction is way better."
Mere humans: "So, what have you been up to?" Scientists:
From the moment noticed the weakness of my flesh
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it *disgusted* me...
More applicable to that time they taught a mouse to drive a tiny car
@@custos3249 Link?
@@custos3249😂😂 that shit was crazy I was shook
So in the future AI apocalypse, these would be some of the first enemies you would face at beginning levels but later on they would combine into a huge monster for the boss battle. haha great ingenuity here!
oh great i have to grind more snail robots because i can't get magnetic threads anywhere else!
What the hell? Why do I need six snailbot shells to make pauldrons? I only have two shoulders!
Exactly what I was thinking. After having played Horizon Zero Dawn, surely nothing could go wrong with having literal swarms of robots based off of animals, right? 🤔
Where are the Power Rangers when you need them..
Good thing I have tons of robotic salt
Drones: "Am i a joke to u?"
Snails: "can you drones reach tight spaces, move on planets with no atmosphere, build structures, help others of your kind to reach somewhere and shapeshift into different multi-celluar robots?"
Also snails: Are you worshipping the Slaanesh?
Unfortunately suction cups won't work without an atmosphere either
@@Wock__ magnets
The ingenuity is impressive but i cant get over just how dang cute they are!
Until they get close to you quietly, then explode.
@@J.D.VisionThe Snail IRL
@@J.D.Vision same
"real world applications". shows post ww2
not ww2 ww3
@@bodo3868 actually what happens when 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓶𝓸𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓻 falls flat on her bodacious posterior.
@@bodo3868 which is live already..
@@simonschneider5913 sure it is
@@simonschneider5913 nope
Just what the world was missing, sentient ball joints.
2050: They've built a snail robot factory completely out of snail robots
I can imagine dust or other particles to be a massive disadvanage for a robot that uses grip as it's main feature. Snails have the advantade of constatly producing mucus, which essencially "washes" every surface it comes across. Here, dusted rails, sucker or shell, metallic junk sticking to the magnets underneath (Unless elecromagnets, but still). A major disadvantage in the filed applications. I can imagine a secondary robot, acting out as simple maintanence for the swarm to keep the little ones operational A fridge sized carrier/ washing machine/ recharge station. It would benefit by getting the swarm as close as possible to the target worksite and give chance to retrieve them afterwards.
why not build the cleaning functions into the main snail robots?
@@isaac5990 I doubt they'll have enough space to incorporate it within the shell, enough energy to sustain such a system, or if it would even work on a small scale like that. If inplemented it could prove to be too much weigh per bot for modular systems to hold together. Also these bots are more of a drone than a *robot* robot.
Depending of their reliablility in the field, it may find few ways of evolution. focus may lay on being either a swarm of one-use slow crawlers packed with sensors similar to Mars rovers, or alternatively a sound 'team' of bots versitile and sophisticated enough to really perform the tasks throughly, there for making them more valuable and worth retirieving (this version would be the one to go with the 'carrier' idea mentioned earlier)
@@crowickedone4037 Maybe they could use some kind of really really thin lubricant as a sort of pseudo-mucus?
M O T H E R S N A I L
@@rarmaesor if they're going to be used in disaster scenarios then they're probably gonna be used in far dustier places for longer, that's different than getting let outside for a short while during the test
Needing 6 robots to climb a 2 foot high step and then having to leave 5 of them behind is a bit of a rug pull. However, imagining a future where these are scaled down 100x, mesh networked, with better surface adhesion, and governed by an autonomous AI is pretty wild.
@puzzzl - Does the surrounding Shanzhai community have the ability to scale this down by 100 at the moment?
I have seen some pretty impressive miniaturization in the GZ horological markets. That might also be a good place to start looking for engineers capable of taking this out of the lab.
@@christopherd.winnan8701 I think the obvious next step here is to mesh network these current units and have them working and moving together as a whole rather than having a couple people standing back there with xbox controllers trying to move them into the right place. With proper software and articulation algorithms we might start to see the kind of emergent behavior that would prove a use for the technology.
@@puzzzl - So how long before we can purchase a set in Sham Shui Po or Hua Qiang Bei?
@@christopherd.winnan8701 What is up with your weird questions? Is this one of the "AI bots" people keep talking about?
I think theres a possible maneuver where the robot that is on top could be latched onto and used to pull the rest up
Nice. Making the nanobots from Big Hero 6 come to life.
Dang beat me to it
i love snails and robots and i think this is the greatest thing that has ever been created
almost same.
snails are 2nd place. Frogs are 1st place for me.
@@nemesisurvivorleon those are also great ribbit
My problem with it creating ways past obstacles is that it leaves its peer swarm to just send one single snailbot over the obstacle, i want to see them helping eachother traverse without sacrificing snails.
I assume that this was a goal oriented test. "Get across" not "Get Everyone across". If these are actually used I think they will be nicer to each other
In the example of the robots crossing the "ravine", you can link robots that crossed into a stable snake on the opposite side, allowing the last robots to cross, then finally the bridge itself climb over itself one by one until all robots have crossed
With climbing you can build a bigger structure of many on the top and use it to lift the last robot up.
You can see that the video is in 15x speed, so with these prototypes its a slow process, also, they probably have only 7 or so robots made. If you make 700, all 50 times quicker, you could do some fancy stuff.
It can at least with the trench crossing. It they are heavy enough to form the bridge, they can do it in reverse and get everyone across
Wow. Even the narrator ist a robot. ;-)
Plot twist: He's a snail robot. The snailbots invented themselves.
This is why I love robotics. You can do just about anything you want with a couple of pieces of plastic and metal!
So this is how the Grey Swarm that will devour the galaxy, started. Cool.
It's actually impressive how they can join like a megazord to form a robotic hand, but still struggle to form a ladder and climb a ~40cm rock.
This is one of the most "sci fi" looking robots I've seen. Something about the uniformly smooth metallic perfectly round shell contrasting the complex machinery below makes it so interesting to look at.
This is great. My old nightmares were getting boring.
Flow robotics is very interesting
Cute chibi ohmu. ❤ But seriously, any dust or grit is going to ruin the adhesion of those little suction cups.
Goated reference
GPR vs. Swarm robots. A fight for the market worth watching
Seeing snails stacked really hit me different
The swarm demonstrations were actually super impressive, ngl. Shows how flexible they can be.
Pfp?
I love how some robots are based off of real creatures, like the one in this video
So, their structure reminds me of the "robinoid" repair bots from the cartoon "Steven Universe", and their swarm configuration reminds me of molecular structures.
In the field of chemistry there has been research into using using a kind of "stem cell" blank of a molecule that can take on the properties of any element. The goal of the research is to separate atmospheric carbon into N + H2O, if i recall. The relevance of this to your project being a potential crossover, using your snail locomotion system somehow at a molecular scale.
This is very cool, and very inspiring! Congratulations on building working models!
@TheQwilleran - Do you have any links to the Robinoid?
They also reminded me of the curl-ups designed by MC Escher.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curl-up
Maybe those will be a future iteration?
@@christopherd.winnan8701 well~ it looks like yt ate my reply. Clearly it's not that i posted a link, but just in case, go to your favorite image search engine and look up "Steven Universe robonoids warp tour". They're spheroid, with four legs that each bisect along the y-axis. I also linked the fan page for the character. For that, you can change the search term to "Steven Universe flask robonoid". Same results, you're just guaranteed to get the Fandom page for it.
Again, sorry 🙏
@@christopherd.winnan8701 the curl up escher art is really cool. It reminds me of a track vehicle. Together, these two types could scale vertical surfaces and create appendages to perform all sorts of tasks! Have you heard of biomimicry?
@@TheQwuilleran - Do you know if there are commercial versions available in Shenzhen?
We cannot fix any crisis we have ! but we can build robot snails ! Great 👍
Why aren't you solving crises instead of typing passive aggressive comments on a youtube video?
This is how science works now if you don't know. Our world is so advanced that we need to start from scratch sometimes and fool ourselves that the invention can be better than what we have, otherwise we'll never get anything done.
Fallacy of relative privation
You make AI art. You don't have any say on the crises affecting the world
Holy shit, this is one of the coolest fucking research projects I've seen in a while! This technology is going to be invaluable for space exploration, disaster relief, rescue efforts, and so much more!
its not going to be used for anything.
@@jebes909090correct. These people are living in a dream world. We never even went to the moon. No one will own a personal robot. The future is apocalyptic.
imagine crawling out of a bunker after nukes drop and the first thing you see are snail robots crossing lawns and manipulating objects
Little robots are pretty cute.
I can’t decide if this is ARG level creepy or absolutely adorable
It can be both!
Creepily cute
wow, this would make a sick puzzle game
Cute little things
This one is wild. Cute how it got unstuck @6:19 lol 😳😅
This has better wiring than my actual car
Big fan of the phrasing "in the wild" like these are animals in their natural habitat and adorably dumpy little robots.
This is really cool. They also look adorable
ever played with magnets in the sand?
I would like to see the tacks after a day in the "wild"
Самое сложное здесь не роботы а прописанные алгоритмы . Когда искуственный интеллект дорастет до написания алгоритмов поведения подобных вещей , то и создание роботов под любые задачи не станет препятствием . Пока все слишком сложно - сложное поведение требует невероятной точности . Даже подобные роботы затребовали невероятно много времени и их управление осуществляется живым оператором .
Yep. Ai integration will be immensely helpful
this is honestly impressive, and truly terrifying. rarely am i trully logged in watching a slow paced video like tgis one congrats
This is the coolest thing I've seen all year.
Such great application and engineering, I think your team will go far and you have forged a vision of machines in nature!
The future is looking pretty amazing. Nice work team!
WHY IS THIS ON MY FEED?
And why am i enjoying whatching this?
Now I really want to see real snails forming into trikes, building bridges, and forming an arm.
awesome! incredible work, can only imagine how long this took you.
Making these into a puzzle game would be really cool
Imagine what thousand of these in high speed crawling into you.
Robot snails? What an amazing design!
Real snail? Nah, just happened by chance.
yep. their cognitive dissonance to deny God.
Real snails work together to form arms to throw tiny box into big box??
There's nothing impressive about the mechanism of each robot snail. It's the swarm tactic part that's catching ppl's eyes.
People who don't even comprehend the main point talking about "cognitive dissonance". Lol
OMG what a progress
This is legit the coolest tech thing I've seen in years.👍
With enough of them, we could make a giant mecha.
Finally, peak physical form.
Man this is so much fun to watch!
Great! Enjoyed the intro with the snail lecture
I love them ❤️ good work
Some of the most creative robotting around, in part because it doesn't leave the viewer with a sense of the uncanny valley the way human/dog shaped robots do. I think they should owe some royalties to the Mega Man games from the 80's for these though.
Impresionante otro gran aporte!!!
Почему наука не популярна, видео крутое, а тема изучения бомба 😭👍
awww they are so cute!
Could these bots be deployed as super snails in a permaculture setting? If they only use a very little power, they could be very useful as targetted sensors. Do you have any plans to use them in similar horticultural settings?
Insanely amazing
These are adorable.
Let's Fucking Goooo!!!! Snail Robots!!!
That amazing , i love it !
Idk why im finding this funny loll. The way its working hard to climb and do all that looks cute but also funny.
they're so cute that they make me emotional. I love you robot snail swarm...
Genial ! This must be the way of doing robotics !
that was SICK
Use softly sectioned continuous membranous tracks with brushes in the housing to keep them clean. This way the whole track suctions as it pops around the leading corners. You can divide as much as you want for as many suction points as you want along this "foot".
the medium voice
the coordination is amazing, orientation of each robot
Worth it just for the footage of a snail's foot tested to failure.
I have seen the future and it is snail robot swarms wow.
Real snail to Robotic snail : So ur ability is same as mine
Real snail : Muda muda muda .....
Robo snail : Ora ora ora ....
Pretty cool
This is awesome.
Sounds like a good application for an octopus hand since it grabs to surface so well
So... Remember that inmortal snail? It has been into something.
This is beautiful
The robotic Snail Knows were you are at all times. It moves towards you at a consistent rate of speed. And now comes with 5g built in Wi-Fi
Very nice 👌 What a creative idea.
my god, this is amazing
Why does the string of words "terrestrial robotic swarms" strike fear into my heart?
This is just cool!
Coupled Together with AI, this could be way morre adaptative than "humanoid" versions.
Lovely 😊
that is ADORABLE such a terrific idea :)
Imagine like 100k of these exploring the surface of a far away planet. Soon we can litter across the entire universe
They could make ones with specialized shells for better grasping or other tasks. A lot of incredible possibilities
I heard this voice in so many analog horrors that I feel uneasy watching this
У меня на первом КПК в 2004 году был игра Улитки, пародия на червячки. Вспомнилось.
they are like real life pikimin i love them
Right before this video I was watching a bunch of videos regarding landmines and other AP explosive devices strewn around in war torn parts of the world. The part at 4:50 where the little guys are just moving around the lawn gave me the idea that these guys can make excellent landmine detectors with further refinements, similar to the hero rats used in cambodia.
But on grim side of the spectrum I also had the idea that these guys can make excellent AP mines with motility and targeting capabilities. And the fact it's based off of snails of all things
Immortal snail about to go crazy
I want one of this to just wander around inside my room
Yooo this is sick
amazing
Snail bots should obviously be shortened to Snots.
this looks like the robot out of big hero 6, only it needs some fast brushless motors to be really quick and maintain the magnetism while moving really fast.
They look so kickable! like a ball...
cuteness threshold reached, if you want to reduce them