Shape-Shifting Robot Squeezes onto Military Radar
Network World (06/17/08)

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently gave iRobot a $3.3 million contract to build a shape-shifting, flexible robot for dangerous or hard-to-reach combat duties. The shape-shifting robot is part of DARPA's Chemical Robots (ChemBots) program, which aims to build soft, flexible, mobile objects that identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their static structural dimensions. DARPA's Mitchell Zakin says gaining covert access to denied or hostile space can be important during military operations, and unmanned platforms such as mechanical robots are of limited use if the only available points of entry are small openings. "We believe that a new class of soft, flexible, meso-scale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions to perform various tasks will be quite valuable in many missions," Zakin says. DARPA adds that nature provides many examples of ChemBot features, including mice, octopi, and i nsects, which can readily traverse openings barely larger than their largest "hard" component by exploiting a variety of reversible mechanisms, such as using elastic materials to twist, crumple, and bend with many degrees of freedom, utilizing the flexibility of the musculoskeletal structure to squeeze through openings, and exploiting reversible changes in modulus to achieve dimensional reductions that can exceed 10:1 ratios. IRobot also recently received an award under the DARPA LANdroids program to develop new portable communications relay robots that are small, inexpensive, intelligent, and robust.
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