Octopus inspires Italian robots
Pisa researchers using live animals as models for smart machines
16 March, 18:33
(ANSA) - Pisa, March 16 - A team of scientists in Tuscany
said Tuesday they were using live octopuses as a model for the
household robots which will someday clean our homes, mind our
children and man our factories.The researchers from the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa said that classic humanoid models, like the ones made famous in the Star Wars films, had serious disadvantages compared to rubbery eight-limbed alternatives. Apart from having fewer arms to work with, standing on two feet puts robots at risk of "falling over and hurting themselves," explained the project's coordinator Professor Cecilia Laschi. She said that was less of a problem for a robot with eight tentacles, which it could use alternately to move around and handle objects.
"Moreover, octopuses have very soft bodies than can squeeze through tight spaces or become rigid, which is something a robot with a hard out shell can't do". "The idea is to create a machine with a flexible inner frame surrounded by a soft mesh that can bend in all kinds of different ways without breaking," she said. The robotics specialist said the first octopus-based prototype would have a soft silicon "skin" with a skeleton inside made of bendable springs.
The team at Sant'Anna recently received a four-year grant of eight million euros from the European Commission to develop the project, which they will present on Wednesday at an emerging technologies convention in Livorno.
The Pisa team is spearheading the research but they will also be working with partners from universities in Israel, Switzerland, the UK, Greece and a group of specialists from the Italian Institute of Technology. During their presentation, they will introduce their "models", a trio of octopuses named Alpha, Beta and Delta.
The eight-legged sea creatures are considered the most intelligent of all invertebrates, demonstrating both short and long-term memory in addition to problem solving skills.
Scientists say octopuses can be trained to distinguish between different shapes and patterns, and perform complicated manual tasks like screwing the lid off a jar to get at food inside.
In addition to the advantage of having multiple limbs, the octopus' complex nervous system could also provide a useful model for robot designers.
Only a small portion of an octopus' "brain cells" are actually in its head, the rest of them dispersed along its tentacles.
This lends itself to the animal's manual dexterity and offers an interesting model for how best to lay out a robot's circuitry.
"Robots are going to become a part of our everyday lives before long and in order to do the things we want them to, they'll have to be fast, flexible and resilient: just like an octopus".
