133. Mighty Morphing All Terrain Robots Made By Nature

The Next Byte Podcast · 1 Aug 2023 · 21m

What this episode covers

Hosts Daniel and Forbode discuss the M4, a bio-inspired multimodal robot developed by Caltech and NASA JPL that can fly, roll, walk, and tumble using eight different modes of locomotion. They highlight how the robot's AI autonomously selects the best traversal method based on terrain, drawing inspiration from nature such as birds and sea lions. The episode also covers Jonathan Schultz of Team Huge, whose BattleBots design philosophy of accessible core components parallels the M4's adaptive engineering, while exploring applications in space exploration, emergency rescue, and last-mile delivery.

Mentioned

Companies
Caltech, NASA JPL, Mouser Electronics, Boston Dynamics, Starship Robotics, Amazon
Products
M4
Also
BattleBots

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