Robots fashioned from dead lobster exoskeletons have awesome strength, light weight, and flexibility — necrobotics advance mixes sustainable food waste with syn

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Robots fashioned from dead lobster exoskeletons have awesome strength, light weight, and flexibility — necrobotics advance mixes sustainable food waste with syn

Scientists tested these motorized elastomer powered exoskeletons across three robotic applications.

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(Image credit: EPFL news blog ) Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Swiss scientists have used dead lobster parts as robotic appendages. The strong yet flexible and lightweight exoskeletons of these marine animals have been successfully demonstrated as robotic manipulators, grippers, and swimmers or flappers flexing at up to 8 Hz. The use of dead animal parts makes this an advance in ‘necrobotics.’ This example of bio-hydrid robotics, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), is particularly sustainable necro-tech, as it uses crustacean shells that are waste from food production.

Often, researchers are inspired by nature to create better man-made things. However, necrobotics unashamedly commandeers bits of (dead) nature to do its bidding. If you need a sustainable robot part, that is the size and shape of a lobster tail, then why reinvent the wheel?

“Exoskeletons combine mineralized shells with joint membranes, providing a balance of rigidity and flexibility that allows their segments to move independently. These features enable crustaceans’ rapid, high-torque movements in water, but they can also be very useful for robotics,” explains EPFL’s CREATE Lab head Josie Hughes. “And by repurposing food waste, we propose a sustainable cyclic design process in which materials can be recycled and adapted for new tasks.”

Dead mosquito proboscis used for high-resolution 3D printing nozzle

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  1. Robots fashioned from dead lobster exoskeletons have awesome strength, light weight, and flexibility — necrobotics advance mixes sustainable food waste with syn
  2. Robots fashioned from dead lobster exoskeletons have awesome strength, light weight, and flexibility — necrobotics advance mixes sustainable food waste with syn
  3. Robots fashioned from dead lobster exoskeletons have awesome strength, light weight, and flexibility — necrobotics advance mixes sustainable food waste with syn
  4. Robots fashioned from dead lobster exoskeletons have awesome strength, light weight, and flexibility — necrobotics advance mixes sustainable food waste with syn

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