A Waggable Tail Lets This Crawling Robot Turn on a Dime

UC Berkeley might be able to arrogate the title of ‘ world ’s fastest turning golem ‘ and it ’s all thanks to an creation that Mother Nature came up even well before the dinosaurs : a wagging tail .

It turns out that tails are n’t just a handy way to know when your dog is excited . They also provide extra lightness and balance , allowing birds to make impressive mid - air turns , animal to dart around quickly , and now robots to make instant 90 grade turns . UC Berkeley ’s Tail Actuated Yaw Locomotion Robotic Autonomous Crawling Hexapod — or TAYLRoACH for short — advances the design of former crawling automaton with the addition of a counter - weighted tail that can swing back and away .

Not only does it make the robot seem happy to see its creators , it also let it make startlingly sharp turns without retard down , even on slippery aerofoil . The downside is that because the tail only has a limited orbit of question , the robot ca n’t repeatedly make the same abrupt turn of events without shift it first . So the researchers are actually looking to meliorate its design with a 360 arcdegree swinging tail . Your move , nature . [ YouTubeviaIEEE Spectrum ]