Festo Reveals New Robotic Ants and Butterflies

mikejuk writes "Every year around this time of year Festo builds some amazing robot or other — last year it was a kangaroo. What could it possibly do to top previous amazing devices? What about some even more amazing robotic insects. BionicANT is designed not only look good but to demonstrate swarm intelligence. The robot not only looks like an ant, but it works like one. The design makes use of piezo bending transducers rather than servos to move. As well as being able to move its six legs, it also has a piezo-activated pair of pincers. The second insect robot is a butterfly — eMotion. For flying machines these are incredibly lightweight at 32 grams. The bodies are laser sintered and the wings use carbon fiber rods. Two miniature servo motors are attached to the body and each wing. The electronics has a microcontroller, an inertial sensor consisting of gyro, accelerometer and compass and two radio modules. Flying time is around 3 or 4 minutes."

Comments

Robotic "Ants" and "Butterflies"

[ArcadeMan]

Impressive, but they're much, much bigger than real ones.

Re:Robotic "Ants" and "Butterflies"

[Intrepid imaginaut]

That actually adds to the cool factor, for my money. Speaking of which I keep throwing money at the screen and I still don't have one of those butterflies, more tech details here.

Re:Robotic "Ants" and "Butterflies"

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes them easier to smash with my baseball bat

And where are the human female robots?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want one!

Robot ants

[seven of five]

Just the thing for your robot picnic.

Fully Integrated Security Technotronic Officer

[skirmish666]

I'm still hopeful they'll build a Fully Integrated Security Technotronic Officer - the Festo Fisto.

Festo

[Anonymous Coward]

for some reason, a robot with that name makes me nervous...

Re:Festo

[GrumpySteen]

That's because the link is blogspam that refers primarly back to itself in order to maximize pageviews. There is, however, one link way down at the bottom that leads to Festo's website where you can easily find out that Festo is a company that provides equipment for industrial automation.

The robots are a way of showing off Festo's technology in a flashy, entertaining way that gets them free advertising.

Festo

[Anonymous Coward]

What is a Festo? Even the link doesn't say.

laser?

[Lead Butthead]

When can I get with equipped with a friggin laser?

Perpetual butterfly?

[berchca]

What's the lightest material for a solar cell? Would be amazing if they could generate electricity with the wings...

Splat

[Anonymous Coward]

I just know if I get a couple of ants, the wife would stamp on them :(

What's a "Festo"?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who (like me) don't know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festo (many good links on wikipedia page)

Festo is a privately owned German industrial control and automation company based in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany.[1] ... has links with universities, institutes and development companies through their Bionic Learning Network program.[2] They are using this to explore ideas and initiatives which go beyond the core business of automation and didactics and may lead to future products and product areas, currently these projects involve their new line of pneumatic actuators. Some of these projects are the Aqua Jelly,[3] AquaPenguin,[4][5] the Aqua Ray,[6] Airicâ(TM)s arm,[7] the Airacuda,[8] and SmartBird.[9][10]

Obligatory Zanti Misfits reference

[asjk]

nt

Very Creepy Crawlies.

[MrL0G1C]

Very creepy crawlies. I'm sure NSA would like to order 10 billion of these with video recording tech. microSD cards weight half a gram and store up to 128GB, that's the storage bit sorted.

Ants

[MrL0G1C]

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Robotic ants

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone say, "I, robot?" Can anyone say, "What will humans do (for a living)?" Can anyone say, "Terminator?"