Popcorn-powered robots could snack on variety of applications

The properties of materials as a power source is not a new idea. It's the basis of steam power, for example. But a team from Cornell University in New York is now investigating the potential of material we are all familiar with, but more often while watching films than any industrial context.

When heated, dried maize kernels expand more than 10 times in size, change their viscosity by a factor of 10 and transition from a regular shape to an irregular one within a fraction of a second, potentially exerting a significant force on any container that confines them. PhD student Stephen Ceron and his supervisor, electrical and computer engineer Katrin Peterson, recently co-authored a paper on this subject which they presented at the recent IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Brisbane.

Peterson explains that a goal of Cornell's Collective Embodied Intelligence Laboratory, of which she is the director, is to construct very minimalist robots that can work together in large numbers to achieve a goal. "Simple robots are cheap and less prone to failures and wear, so we can have many operating autonomously over a long time," she said. " So we are always looking for new and innovative ideas that will permit us to have more functionalities for less, and popcorn is one of those."