Chameleon-inspired robot 'tongue' can catch a live insect in just 120 milliseconds

Bio-medical engineers have created a robot so fast moving that it can catch an insect with its'tongue' - after studying nature's springiest amphibians for inspiration. Chameleons, salamanders and toads were the inspiration for a new range of soft robots which can carry out automated tasks requiring a range of movements at a fast pace. Industrial and biomedical engineers studied the stored elastic energy that the animals use to launch their sticky tongues in order to replicate the fast, non-robotic movement. Catching unsuspecting insects located up to one-and-a-half body lengths away the amphibians high-speed movements inspired researchers at the Purdue University's College, Indiana, U.S Similar to the chameleon's tongue strike, a pre-stressed pneumatic soft robot is capable of expanding five times its own length, catch a live fly beetle and retrieve it in just 120 milliseconds Catching unsuspecting insects located up to one-and-a-half body lengths away the amphibians high-speed movements helped researchers at the Purdue University's College of Engineering, Indiana, U.S. to develop a new class of entirely soft robots. These bio-inspired robots are fabricated using stretchable polymers similar to rubber bands, with internal pneumatic channels that expand upon pressurisation.