Search Here

Curious to better understand the movements of sea turtles, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have actually created the "FlipperBot" to generate new data on how they navigate themselves in world.

Researchers observed a baby loggerhead sea turtles navigate Jekyll Island, Ga., just after hatching. This led Daniel Goldman, a professor of physics at Georgia Tech to come up with Flipperbot so that researchers could better observe their behavior.

These little creatures need to rely on dexterity and flexibility in their wrists to get around without moving a lot of the surrounding sand, they said following their observations.

"We are looking at different ways that robots can move about on sand," Goldman said in a statement. "We wanted to make a systematic study of what makes flippers useful or effective. We've learned that the flow of the materials plays a large role in the strategy that can be used by either animals or robots."

Goldman added, "In that study we noticed they were doing a bend at their wrists. We made some speculation, but didn't have any solid evidence. So, we built a turtle inspired robot that functions as a physical model".

The research was published April 24 in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

Watch the video below to see what this adorable robotic looks like in action.

Check out the video below for further explanation as to how these robotic turtles can help improve robot mobility in the future.