This was not a story you expected to read today, nor was it one I expected to write. Heck, judging by their interviews on the subject, it’s probably fair to say that the team of mechanical engineers at Rice University didn’t expect their work to lead them down this path either.
And yet here we all are, talking about dead spiders as “necrobotic pincers”.
Image credits: Rice University
In what may be a case of bio-inspired robotics gone too far, researchers are exploring how dead arachnids can function as a robotic gripper using hydraulic pressure.
Spiders use blood pressure to move their legs. When they die, their hearts stop beating, causing them to lose this hydraulic pressure. That’s why they curl up into a ball when they die. It turns out that combining them with an air-filled syringe makes for a handy robotic gripper.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JOS6hMHIUM?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&start=1&wmode=transparent&w=640&h=360]
“This area of soft robotics is really fun because we use previously unexploited types of actuators and materials,” assistant professor of engineering Daniel Preston says in a statement. “The spider falls into that line of research. It’s something that hasn’t been used before but has a lot of potential.”
That potential includes microelectronics assembly, according to Preston. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine anyone selling dead wolf spiders at scale, but they’re surprisingly robust, going through about 1,000 opening and closing cycles before their joints start to break. Although this could be addressed by adding a polymeric coating to the biodegradable system.
Interestingly (not that everything isn’t uniquely interesting), the smaller the spider, the more it will be able to lift in proportion to its own weight.
Image credits: Rice University