Cockroaches and lizards inspire an amphibious robot New high-speed amphibious robot can swim, run on top of water and crawl on difficult terrain for agricultural, excavation and search-and-rescue uses. December 30, 2020, 12:00 pm The AmphiSTAR robot from Ben-Gurion University can swim, run on water and crawl on uneven terrain. Photo: screenshot
Bioinspired and Medical Robotics Laboratory Director David Zarrouk and graduate student Avi Cohen presented the mechanical design of the AmphiSTAR robot and its control system at the virtual IROS (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) that continues this month. “The AmphiSTAR uses a sprawling mechanism inspired by cockroaches, and it is designed to run on water at high speeds like the basilisk lizard,” says Zarrouk. “We envision that AmphiSTAR can be used for agricultural, search and rescue and excavation applications, where both crawling and swimming are required.”