News and New Products

Robotic grasshopper leaps as high as 27 times its height

By Matthew Miller, Editor in Chief, EDN.com -- EDN, 6/26/2008

Researchers at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland have built a 5-cm-tall robot that takes its design cues from grasshoppers and locusts and can jump as high as 1.4m. The 7g critter uses a 0.6g pager motor to slowly charge two torsion springs and then explosively releases that energy.

The device's battery can power 320 jumps at 3-sec intervals. Before you start entertaining visions of new thrill rides or worrying about swarms of lethal-attack hoppers, however, check out the video clip below; the researchers may have mastered takeoffs, but landing still appears to be a bit of a problem. (Note: The clip has no sound.)