Cats Teach Robots to Land on Feet
Training rescue robots to land safely from falls like cats could give them nine lives in the field. Larry Greenemeier reports
By Larry Greenemeier
SUBSCRIBE TO 60-Second Tech
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Robots have evolved in leaps and bounds in recent years, but they still cannot safely leap or bound. They have to move carefully. If a robot were to fall from an elevated surface, for the most part it would crash down like a bag of rocks. Not ideal if that robot is on a rescue mission.
So a team of Georgia Tech researchers wants to produce robots that are more agile, by making them literally cat-like. Specifically, the plan is to create a robot that can emulate a cat’s uncanny ability to calculate the best landing angle, adjust its body midflight and land on its feet.
So far the research team has been able to build a robot capable of computing landing angles during test falls. They hope to eventually give the robots joints that can twist or flip their bodies to stick the landing, regardless of the angle.
To do that, they’ll need better motors and servos. The ones available today are not fast enough to sufficiently adjust a robot’s body in real time.
Baby steps. David Belle didn’t develop the cityscape acrobatic activity known as Parkour overnight. And the typical house cat has had tens of thousands of years to perfect the soft landing.
—Larry Greenemeier
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
