Slinky caterpillar-inspired bot could lead earthquake rescue missions

A caterpillar-inspired soft robot could slip through narrow gaps in rubble to save people trapped by earthquakes or bombings.

Created by researchers at the University of Houston in Texas, the slinky machine is made of ultra-thin sensors, actuating electronics and temperature-sensitive artificial muscle that can adapt to the environment and crawl, similar to the movement of an inchworm or caterpillar.

“Many creatures such as inchworms, which have completely soft, compliant bodies without any rigid components, exhibit unprecedented abilities in adapting their shapes,” the team wrote. This ability means the animals move in “unique” ways, they added.

The team, which also included researchers from Rice University in Texas and Beijing University and Zhejiang University in China, claimed their worm is a “new class” of soft robot, which are traditionally unable to adapt to environments or move independently.

The prototype uses a liquid crystal elastomer doped with carbon nanoparticles for better thermal conductivity as its artificial muscle. Ultra-thin, mesh-shaped thermal actuators heat the muscle to move the robot, while silicon-based sensors measure light levels.

Potential applications for the 29mm robot range from surgery to search-and-rescue missions, said mechanical engineer Cunjiang Yu.

The researchers hope to make future devices bigger, and to experiment with other types of sensors.