UC Berkeley might be able to claim the title of ‘world’s fastest turning robot’ and it’s all thanks to an innovation that Mother Nature came up even well before the dinosaurs: a wagging tail.
It turns out that tails aren’t just a handy way to know when your dog is excited. They also provide extra agility and balance, allowing birds to make impressive mid-air turns, animals to dart around quickly, and now robots to make instant 90 degree turns. UC Berkeley’s Tail Actuated Yaw Locomotion Robotic Autonomous Crawling Hexapod—or TAYLRoACH for short—advances the design of previous crawling robots with the addition of a counter-weighted tail that can swing back and forth.
via Gizmodo
June 5, 2013
