Cockroach Robot Grows Tail, Does Flips

The nice thing about making bio-inspired robots is that you can take inspiration from biology, but you don't have to be constrained by it. Lots of different animals have lots of different adaptations that make them good at lots of different things, but (sadly) there isn't really one SuperAnimal that incorporates all of these adaptations at once. With robots, we can make this happen. UC Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, headed by Ron Fearing, has years of experience building all kinds of different flavors of robotic roaches, many of which have been modeled fairly closely on actual roaches. However, their latest roachbot (presented at IROS 2017) makes a notable departure from the original insect: It's got a tail, which actual cockroaches don't, meaning that it can flip itself over with ease.