Amazing Robots Inspired By Animals

The human body is an incredible machine, but as hard as we try there are things that some animals are capable of that we will never be able to do. Without machinery to help us, we will not be able to fly like birds or breath unaided underwater as fish do. Some animals can do things we can never master, but robots are a different matter. There are several robots inspired by animals and many of them are able to achieve tasks that humans would have great difficulty with.

MIRO

MIRO is short for Marine Intelligence Robot. It is a biometric fish produced by AIRO Inc. of South Korea. It has two motors and four distance sensors that help it to swim in all directions while avoiding obstacles. It can dive up to 50 meters and has become very popular with tourists, as it has been swimming with sharks.

Bionic Bird

Bionic Bird can fly so well that even other birds sometimes do not realize it is a robot and think it is one of them. Beating its wings at 18 times per second, it flies at 12 mph and has a 100-meter range.

Pleurobot

Pleurobot was developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and is based on a salamander. It has waterproof exterior and body parts and is just as happy in the water as it is out of it, just like the lizard it is based on. It has a complex neural network, joints that work independently and is being seen as an ideal candidate for search and rescue missions.

Spot Mini

As possibly one of the better-known animal-inspired robots, Spot Mini from Boston Dynamics has a long dinosaur like neck and head. It has a mouth so sentive4 that it can handle a glass without breaking it. Running is not a problem either and it does all the same things its predecessor Spot did, plus a few more.

Octobot 

Octobot is the first autonomous soft robot. It has a silicone exterior that makes it similar to the squishy skin of the sea-faring octopus. Inside there are 3D-printed pneumatic chambers that fill with gas resulting from a chemical reaction of hydrogen peroxide and platinum to power the bot’s tentacles four at a time.

Bionicopter

This robot, which is based on a dragonfly, is more maneuverable than previous iterations of flying robots. It has a wingspan of 27 inches and a body 19 inches long. But in slow motion, its wings look just like the real thing. Bionicopter can fly forward, backward and stop abruptly in the air. It has a carbon fiber body covered in blue polyester performance material, which makes Bionicopter a beautiful bug to behold.

Other Robots Inspired By Animals

These are just a tiny sample of animal-inspired robots, there are many more. Robugtix T8X resembles a rather large spider and Aioracuda is based on the Atlantic cod. Then there is Scorpion Hexapod, whose name explains where its inspiration came from and has technology and robotics continue to progress the capabilities of animals will be mimicked even more.