The Robot Menagerie

It's a great time to be building robots.  Today, there are many robot variants that mimic the biology we see in nature. Here is a collection of a few.  I think this is amazing. At the same time it is fantastic that there are a lot of interesting robots yet to be built, both familiar and alien.  There are no limitations to that which we can imagine. 

Robotic Animals - Bio-inspired Robot Menagerie

The dog

Everyone knows Spot the Boston Dynamics Dog.  There are many many quadruped robots - it is really more of a robotic-question of how to implement the legs. I won't go into any more details here since Quadrupeds are becoming so common to us. Dogs, Cats, Mules, Chetas, etc!  

Original Mojo - Robot Dog design

The interesting thought is how can the envelope of capabilities be expanded, speed, stability, terrain, heights, etc.  Just thinking of what robot videos you have seen, how many have quadrupeds climbing steep rough terrain?

robotic fish

Fish are an interesting twist. There are a few notables.. including this 'spy robot':

Robot - Spy Fish:  Charlie the CIA spy fish.  

The Eel - Eelume Undersea robot for undersea inspection use cases.

Another fish:  BlueSwarm  (IEEE spectrum article)

Robotic Snakes

The Slitherbot:  posted on Hack-a-day Slitherbot

Slitherbot - hackaday.io

TESLA Snake:  This was really a automated Charging Connector prototype. It is best viewed in YouTube at x2 normal speed!

Bionic Menagerie

And then there is Festo!!  Festo is a German company that specialized in automation.  The have a lab that produces bionic innovations which cover a full spectrum of animals.  Anyone (or all of them) of which would be an internet sensation. [makes me wonder why we don't see them more in the wild. ?]

Bionic Swift

Bionic Kangaroo

Bionic fin Wave - this one is great for swimming in pipes.  Also very similar concept to the motion available for my Millipede project.

Insects:

bionic Ants (Festo) - a natural for swarms too.

Centipede Robot - for getting into hard to reach places

And animal robots are a clear cut winner for pets - more companion animals:

Companion Cats

Animatronics - let's make humans! at least human parts... 

The Eye

this is about the creepiest eye camera there is to date!  It is wonderful! :D

The Claw!

Mark Sen...

and on Tested:

Summary - there are many instances of biomimicry. It is in our very nature to anthropomorphize robots so why not start to build directly in the medium?

There are so many instances of this in our world. this may have to be the first installment. I have waited some time to make this post. It will just need to be an ongoing series.