Watch this bat-inspired robot use sound to navigate and spot plants

New robots can learn old tricks. Bats use sound to navigate their surroundings in the dark and now a robot called Robat can do the same. Robat is a four-wheeled autonomous robot, equipped with a speaker to mimic a bat's mouth, and two microphones, positioned on the left and right, to mimic a bat's ears. As it moves around, Robat's speakers produce a high-frequency chirp every half a metre. It can then identify the position of obstacles by calculating the delay between making this sound and the echo returning, and any differences between the two microphones.