Yesterday, I showed this cool video of Boston Dynamic’s very impressive BigDog robot. What was really impressive about the robot was its ability—if it was kicked or if it slipped on ice—to balance itself in real-time.
Well, it now appears that future robots might be able to improve upon this performance by simply adding a tail. According to this informative article in ScienceDaily scientists are now studying how the gecko uses its tail to keep its balance.
In addition to giving robots better balance it is thought that the geckos tail might provide the inspiration to also help unmanned aerial vehicles manuever more effectively in the air and assist astronauts manuever more effectively in space.
Looking for more bits of inspiration from the animal kingdom? Check out these past posts:
Bettle Biomimickry
A Little More Bio-inspiration
Follow the Ants
To Survive … Change Diets
Swarm Intelligence Gets Even Smarter
Biomimickry at its Best
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
