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A robot walks on the water thanks to the evolution solution

Robots can serve pizza, crawl on extraterrestrial planets, swim like octopus and jellyfish, cosplay as human beings and even perform surgery. But can they walk on the water?

Rhagobot is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind in the mention of a robot. Inspired by Rhagovelia Water Stidient, semi-key insects also known as ripple bugs, these tiny robots can slide through rushed streams due to the robotization of an evolutionary adaptation.

Rhagovelia (as opposed to other species of water branches) have fan appendages towards the ends of their medium legs which open passively and close according to the way in which water below moves. This is why they seem to slide effortlessly through the surface of the water. Biologist Victor Ortega-Jimenez from the University of California in Berkeley, was intrigued by the way such tiny insects can speed up and make quick turns and other maneuvers, almost as if they were flying on a liquid surface.

“Rhagovelia Fan serves as an inspiring model for developing self-morph artificial propellers, providing information on their biological form and function, “he said in a recently published study in Science.” Such configurations are largely unexplored in semi-aquatic robots. “”

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It took five years in Ortega-Jimenez to understand how the bugs move. While Rhagovelia It was thought that leg fans were transformed because they were fed by the muscles, he found that the appendages automatically adapted to surface tension and elastic forces under them, opening passively and closing ten times faster than it takes to blink. They dilate immediately when they come into contact with water and change shape depending on the flow.

By covering an extended surface for their size and holding their shape when the insects move their legs, Rhagovelia Fans generate a huge propulsion. They also do a double service. Although they are rigid enough to resist the deformation when they are extended, the fans are still flexible enough to collapse easily, adhering to the claw above to avoid putting themselves on the path of the animal when it is out of the water. It also helps that insects have hydrophobic legs that repel water that could increase them differently.

Ortega-Jimenez and his research team observed the leg fans using a scanning electron microscope. If they were going to create a robot based on ripple bugs, they needed to know the exact structure they were looking for. After having experienced with cylindrical fans, researchers discovered that Rhagovellia The fans are in fact structures made of many flat beards with bearded people, which was previously unknown.

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