Cockroaches traverse crevices, crawl rapidly in confined spaces, and inspire a soft, legged robot
Abstract
Cockroaches intrude everywhere by exploiting their soft-bodied, shape-changing ability. We discovered that cockroaches traversed horizontal crevices smaller than a quarter of their height in less than a second by compressing their bodies’ compliant exoskeletons in half. Once inside vertically confined spaces, cockroaches still locomoted rapidly at 20 body lengths per second using an unexplored mode of locomotion—body-friction legged crawling. Using materials tests, we found that the compressive forces cockroaches experience when traversing the smallest crevices were 300 times body weight. Cockroaches withstood forces nearly 900 times body weight without injury, explaining their robustness to compression. Cockroach exoskeletons provided inspiration for a soft, legged search-and-rescue robot that may penetrate rubble generated by tornados, earthquakes, or explosions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 08, 2016
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1514591113
Entities
People
- Kaushik Jayaram
- Robert J Full
Organizations
- United States Army Research Laboratory