Video of the week: tether-free robot takes flight from water

News

This week’s video comes from Imperial College London where water-reactive chemicals are helping to propel a robot 26m through the air, an advance that could see the ‘bot taking water samples from hazardous environments.

 

Making the transition from water to air requires a lot of power, so the team at Imperial developed a system that requires 0.2g of calcium carbide powder in the bio-inspired robot’s combustion chamber. The university added that the only moving part is a small pump that brings in water from the environment the robot is in.

The water and the calcium-carbide combine in a reaction chamber, producing combustible acetylene gas. As the gas ignites and expands, it pushes the water out as a jet, which propels the robot from the water and into a glide. Details of the robot are published in Science Robotics.

In a statement, lead researcher Dr Mirko Kovac, director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory at Imperial, said: “Water-to-air transition is a power-intensive process, which is difficult to achieve on a small-scale flying vehicle that needs to be lightweight for flight.

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