Festo provides a range of industrial control and automation products including robotics. It also does a good bit of research in this area as well. One of the latest things to crawl out of the labs is Festo’s BionicANTs.
The robots are created using 3D-molded interconnect device (MID) technology. The laser-sintered components have conductors that are visible, adding to the artistic design of the critters. The robot’s head has a stereo camera and sensors. The six legs are powered by piezo electric motors.
The BionicANTs (autonomous networking technology) are designed to work together. They can communicate and coordinate with each other. This type of swarm robotics is an active area of study.
BionicANTs are not the only thing that we have seen from Festo. It has also been playing with birds (see “New Robot Designs Are For The Birds”). We just wonder whether the birds will be eating the ants for lunch.
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William Wong Blog
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Bill's latest articles are listed on this author page, William G. Wong.
Bill Wong covers Digital, Embedded, Systems and Software topics at Electronic Design. He writes a number of columns, including Lab Bench and alt.embedded, plus Bill's Workbench hands-on column. Bill is a Georgia Tech alumni with a B.S in Electrical Engineering and a master's degree in computer science for Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
He has written a dozen books and was the first Director of PC Labs at PC Magazine. He has worked in the computer and publication industry for almost 40 years and has been with Electronic Design since 2000. He helps run the Mercer Science and Engineering Fair in Mercer County, NJ.
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