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View Full Version : Pentagon develops shape-shifting robot



perocity
06-30-2010, 05:11 PM
Pentagon research scientists have taken a first step towards “Transformers”-style shape-shifting cars and aircraft,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSoEcRg5DcE
with a robot that can fold itself like origami into different forms.

At the moment the tiny robot – a sheet just half a millimetre thick, scarcely thicker than a piece of paper – only folds itself into a boat, like a child’s toy, or a “paper glider” plane shape. But it is anticipated that in future it will be used to create full-sized cars and aircraft that morph as they move, or robots that can “flow” like mercury into small openings, or multipurpose military uniforms that can adapt to different environments.

Researchers at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) launched the project in 2007 in conjunction with Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a small sheet of stiff tiles and “joints” of elastomer, “studded with thin foil actuators and flexible electronics. The demonstration material contains 25 total actuators, divided into five groupings. A shape is produced by triggering the proper actuator groups in sequence,” according to a statement by Robert Wood, the head of the Harvard research team.

perocity
06-30-2010, 05:12 PM
Look out sky net He he.

bobdina
06-30-2010, 06:17 PM
Great stuff and great find, just validated your vid for the front page and man that was awesome. Bob

perocity
06-30-2010, 07:04 PM
Thanks bob
Would love to see what their playing with behind closed doors.I can't imagine them cutting loose of this tid bit and not have something more substantial.