Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams.
Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates autonomously, can climb slopes at angles of up to 80 degrees, and can carry loads up to 12 times its weight.
“We’ve previously created soft robots that can move quickly through the water and across solid ground, but wanted to explore a design that can carry objects through the air across open space,” says Jie Yin, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. “The simplest way to do this is to follow established an established track – similar to the aerial trams you see in the mountains. And we’ve now demonstrated that this is possible.”
The soft robots are made of ribbon-like liquid crystal elastomers that are twisted – like a rotini noodle – and then joined together at the end to form a loop that resembles a bracelet. This “soft ring robot” is suspended on a track, which can be a thread, wire, cable or other material. Specifically, the same ring is looped around the track two or three times, which causes the ring to hang at an angle that is parallel to the track.
Read more at North Carolina State University
Image: Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates autonomously, can climb slopes at angles of up to 80 degrees, and can carry loads up to 12 times its weight. (Credit: Fangjie Qi, NC State University)
