This robot has a strange design; despite being only 30 cm long, it can jump up to 100 times its own height.
Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA) have just introduced a unique type of robot with a “one-of-a-kind” function: it can jump very high off the ground.
One day, this robot may be used on the moon.
It is known that, despite being only 30 cm long and weighing about 30 grams, this robot can jump to a height of 32.9 meters.
Santa Barbara, one of the co-authors who developed the robot, believes that one day it could be used on the moon.
According to the research team, under the low gravity conditions on the surface of the Moon, this robot could achieve an impressive distance of up to 500 meters with just one jump.
For decades, engineers have drawn inspiration from animals to develop robots with similar jumping capabilities. This is because animals’ jumping ability is often limited by their muscle strength. However, with robots, any limitations can be surpassed.
The tiny robot can jump up to 32 meters in real conditions, and it is even more impressive under low gravity conditions.
For instance, in 2016, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley successfully designed a robot named Salto, inspired by a shrub, which can jump 10 times its own height.
“The jump height of a manufactured device can be much greater than that of any species,” the researchers explained in a study published in the journal Nature.
It is known that the jumping robot can be applied to overcome obstacles that previously could only be navigated by flying robots to collect aerial images, according to the research team.
