Robot moves with celestial compass
Recently engineers in France came up with a new type of robot. This type doesn’t rely on GPS to move itself, instead it uses an optical compass and motion sensor to track its location within the world around it. Old-fashioned models are definitely inaccurate and too imprecise for sure. When you control it, you can make sure everything is accurate and better.
Recently, scientists were inspired by how these ants use UV light to navigate. They wondered if there was a way to use this technology in other ways and came up with the idea of using it with robots so they can sense where they are going.
Researchers from the University of Aix-Marseille and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, led by Stéphane Viollet, who published the paper in the American journal of robotics “Science Robotics”, have presented the AntBot robot, which mimics desert ants thanks to its new optical navigation system.
This robot has a carrying capacity of up to 2.3kg which is excellent for working in rugged terrain like disaster areas. It can get within 14m of where it needs to go and can travel safely at a distance of more than 50m.
There is still a lot of room for improvement in the area of robot autonomy. For example, they need to be able to walk over long distances and in the dark. Doing this would allow them to work as the primary source of power for those robots that need independent energy sources.
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Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
