RoMeLa's Chemically-Actuated ChIMERA Robot Moves Like Amoeba
Apparently Professor Dennis Hong at the Robotics & Mechanisms
Laboratory (RoMeLa) at Virginia Tech is exploring robotic
locomotion not only with strange multi-legged robots but also
with robots with no legs at all. When we wrote about iRobot's
blob 'bot, I should have known that others were working on
similar chemical actuation projects. It turns out Professor Hong
and his team are developing an amoeba-inspired robot called
ChIMERA (Chemically Induced Motion Everting Robotic Amoeba),
which can slide using a technique known as whole-skin
locomotion. To see the "amoebot" in action, watch the video
below. It's a talk Professor Hong gave at TEDxNASA -- ChIMERA
stars at 07:27.