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The TerminatorBot CRAWLER (Cylindrical Robot for Autonomous Walking and Lifting during Emergency Response) is a search-and-rescue millibot funded by the DARPA Distributed robotics contract. The robot can both manipulate objects and crawl forward using its finger-like arms.
The research approach looked at these key factors:
Use kinematic study and biological inspiration to design a compact mechanism suitable for both manipulation and locomotion.
Design for ballistic flight for gross locomotion, limbed crawling for fine locomotion.
Evolve novel gaits in parallel with the mechanism design to provide locomotion modes for the robot.
Develop gait evaluation and adaptation strategies to identify and adapt to unknown environments.
Develop collaboration strategies for heterogeneous teams.
The TerminatorBot was consciously modeled on the Terminator robot in its final throes of the first movie. In the film, the original Terminator is reduced to dragging itself forward with just two digits of its robotic hand, having been blown in half minutes earlier.
One of the key features of the robot is the usefulness of robots in "core-bored" search and rescue. The TerminatorBot can be dropped into holes bored for insertion of search cameras.
Bill Christensen catalogues the inventions, technology and ideas of science fiction writers at his website, Technovelgy. He is a contributor to Live Science.
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