Researchers at China’s Harbin Institute of Technology have developed a robot that not only walks on water, but also leaps, landing on the water’s surface without sinking.
Robotic water strider. (Image via www.acs.com)
The team, led by Qinmin Pan, created the robot to mimic the water-strider, an insect whose front wing is only half function and is built to transfer its body weight in order to run on the water’s surface.
This first-of-its-kind water-strider robot is actually an improvement upon a previous robot created by Pan and her team a year ago that was capable only of walking on water, not jumping.
The water-strider robot has three legs, two of which are made from super hydrophobic nickel foam that stops them from sinking. On its underside, it has a driving system that creates the propulsion of its legs. Although the robot weighs 0.5 ounces (the actual weight of 1,100 water striders) it is capable of jumping 5.5 inches high and approximately 14 inches forward each leap, without sinking. It even jumps at a speed of 3.6 miles per hour.
Actual water strider. (Image via University of Arizona)
According to the team’s research paper, “Few studies reported a miniature robot capable of continuously jumping on the water surface as agile as a real water strider.”
It looks like the team is making “tiny” strides in robotics. ■
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