We have robotic fish and jellyfish that can swim in the seas. We have robot cats and dogs that can sprint across the land. It’s time the amphibians got their turn.Meet Pleurobot. It’s a machine programmed to move just like a salamander, the result of hundreds of hours of painstaking research into how those creatures move. Like a salamander, it’s amphibious, able to move between water and land, slowly, thanks to waterproofing armor. Its low center of gravity allows it to traverse even uneven terrain.Media Platforms Design TeamLike other biomimicking bots, Pleurobot could have a role in search-and-rescue efforts, goign where humans cannot. And here, it’s amphibious nature gives it a particular talent—imagine using a mechanical salamander to find trapped ship passengers. And as Pleurobot’s researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne say, the clockwork amphibian could aid in understanding the locomotion of long-extinct creatures we know only from fossils.View full post on YoutubeSource: IEEE Spectrum via Gizmodo John WenzWriterJohn Wenz is a Popular Mechanics writer and space obsessive based in Philadelphia. He tweets @johnwenz.
