The cockroach from Kaliningrad
A cockroach robot has been created at the I.Kant BFU
Bioinspired cockroach was created by scientists and engineers of the I.Kant BFU, within just one laboratory. Work on it lasted 7 months. The customer was a Russian organization, which indicated in its TOR that the robot should be as cockroach-like as possible. In practice, this means the following:the robot must be similar in appearance to one of the types of cockroach and correspond to its physical size;
- the dimensions of the robot must correspond to one of the types of cockroaches;
- the "behavior" of the robot should be as close as possible to the natural behavior of cockroaches.
- Alexey Belousov, lecturer at the Physics and Technology Institute of the I.Kant BFU, in the project – chief designer, developer of mechanics and electronics:
"Probably the most difficult thing was to find a balance between these three points. For example, at the University of Berkeley they have been working on their cockroach for 4 years, but there is no task to make the robot cockroach-like, so it is faster than ours, but it does not know how to turn on the move and does not look like a real cockroach at all. And the customer has set us exactly such a task – to make a cockroach robot, and to meet the deadlines and budget."
As a result, the South American cockroach species Blaberus Giganteus was chosen as the basis of the prototype. But it was not possible to find it in Kaliningrad, it also turned out to be problematic to bring it, so the research team worked with the species Blaberus Craniifer: it differs from Giganteus only in its reduced size (70-80 mm), otherwise (appearance, biomechanics) they are identical. This type of cockroach is often called a "deadhead" because of the characteristic pattern on the back of the larva.
As the design engineers themselves tell, for the first two months they simply studied the cockroach: its habits, features of movement, etc. And only then did the design and construction work begin. Only the 20th version corresponded to the TOR.
A cockroach from the I.Kant BFU has a length of 10 cm, moves at a speed of 30 cm / s, i.e. 3 cases per second (real cockroaches run at a speed of up to 10 cases per second). The robot is equipped with photosensitive sensors, as well as a system of contact and non-contact sensors for detecting obstacles and avoiding them.
Danil Borchevkin, Lead Engineer of the I.Kant BFU:
"When working on this project, we had two global goals in front of us. Firstly, to work out methods, methods and methods of development, design and production of small mechanical systems for biomedical applications (this is cyber prosthetics, replacement of lost limbs, etc., where small mechanics, small electronics and high autonomy are needed). And the second goal is to find out what technological barriers need to be overcome when developing other small electromechanical systems, what amount of technology is needed, what you can do yourself, and what you can order and buy. It turned out that it was very difficult to find components. I had to do a lot by myself, manually. For example, in Austria there is a company that creates foot drives, but a set for one cockroach costs about 600 thousand rubles, and we have a budget for the entire project of only 1.5 million rubles."
The deadline for the project is December, by which time the development team expects to embed a BINC (a free–form inertial navigation system) so that the robot can move along a given course. This system includes an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer – a set that is installed in every smartphone today. Engineers already understand how to do this, so solving the problem is a matter of time. In addition, it is planned to increase the autonomy of work: now the robot can move for 20 minutes.
It is important to note that the robot can carry a load of up to 10 g, which the military became interested in, because a miniature robot can penetrate into hard-to-reach places with a portable camera. And in a week, as promised by a group of researchers of the I.Kant BFU, they will present a sample in a matte case with camouflage coloring.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
24.09.2015