This Robot Rebuilds Itself Into A Different Robot In Minutes
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Researchers at the University of Toronto's Continuum Robotics Laboratory introduced CRAFT, a 3D-printed modular design library for tendon-driven continuum robots that allows a single robot to physically reconfigure its shape, stiffness, and degrees of freedom within minutes by snapping together six interchangeable modules. The same base robot was reconfigured into a long teleoperated probe for aircraft-wing inspection achieving 41% reduction in sag, a pipe-crawling robot capable of navigating 90-degree bends and 30-degree inclines, and a soft robotic hand that successfully cracked eggs with 85% accuracy. CRAFT eliminates the need to build entirely new robots for different tasks, replacing bespoke redesign with rapid modular composition. submitted by /u/Similar_Suit_3709 |
