Micro robots have the ability to transform themselves and can flexibly squeeze into narrow spaces

Science and Technology Daily reported the news

CLARI is lighter than a table tennis ball and can fit several in one palm.

Image source: University of Colorado Boulder

According to a report in "Advanced Intelligent Systems" magazine on the 30th, a team of engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder demonstrated CLARI, a miniature deformable robot that can change its shape and squeeze through narrow gaps. Its design is inspired by the insect world and may help rescuers after major disasters in new ways in the future.

CLARI weighs less than a table tennis ball, and several robots can easily fit in the palm of your hand. CLARI can transform from square to elongated when surroundings become cramped. CLARI has four legs, but it allows engineers to mix and match its appendages to create some "wild" wriggling robots—like an eight-legged spider-like robot that can walk on webs.

In its most basic form, CLARI is shaped like a square, with four sides and four legs. However, by changing CLARI, it can expand wider like a crab or stretch longer like a centipede. All in all, the robot can transform from a square shape about 34mm wide to an elongated shape about 21mm wide

Each leg of CLARI functions almost as an independent robot, with its own circuit board and dual actuators that can move the legs forward, backward, left, and right, similar to a human hip joint. In theory, this modular design allows CLARI robots to take on different shapes.

For now, CLARI is still in its infancy, but in the near future these small robots will be able to independently crawl into the interior of a jet engine or the rubble of a collapsed building

In future iterations, researchers will also integrate sensors into CLARI so that it can detect and respond to obstacles, enabling it to "kick away" obstacles such as trees and blades of grass in complex natural environments, or Keep going between the rocks through the cracks.

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