A group of disparate researchers from all across Europe have banded together to form the Octopus Project. It’s goal is to recreate the amazing abilities of octopus tentacles so that new uses for them can be had, such as for search and rescue operations underwater, or for squeezing into very small spaces to see what is behind rubble following an Earthquake, and of course, to further the science of robotics. So far, the team has succeeded in building a single tentacle, or arm with suction cups, GizMag says it’s modeled after a real Mediterranean octopus and it is being funded by the European Commission, a group that is part of the central governing body of the European Union.
Most robots are stiff. They have arms and legs made out of hard plastic and metal and their movements are anything but graceful. This new tentacle robot, however, the first such prototype built by the Octopus Project team, is eerily smooth and graceful, as can be seen in the video posted on YouTube by the research team. And not only does it move smoothly, it’s able to grab things, hold on to them and move them to where it wants them, in pretty much the same fashion as a real octopus does. And as if all that’s not enough, the team also added sensors so that the thing can actually feel what it’s holding so it will know how much pressure to apply to keep from damaging things.
This is all made possible by the intelligent design of the appendage. It’s made of silicon and soft rubber on the outside and has a steel braided cable on the inside. It get its abilities, not by yanking, pulling or pushing as is done with traditional robots, but by applying a principal of certain plastics whereby they are able to be contracted by applying a small electrical charge. By applying the charge to certain areas, the researchers are able to make the arm move where it wants. And when applied at a smaller scale, they can do the same thing with the individual suction cups that sit at the bottom of the arm. The researchers admit they did little more than copy Mother Nature. Human muscles, for example, work on exactly the same principle.
In an interview with Briton’s MailOnline, the team said they plan to build an entire robot octopus that functions almost identically to the real thing. The only discernable difference they say, will be in their ability to control its actions.