A Team of Six Ant-Inspired Tiny Robots Pulled a 3,900-pound Car

A research team from Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Laboratory at Stanford University had created an ant-inspired robot that can pull an object that has a thousand times of its weight.

Ants can carry weights that are way heavier than them when they work together. The team observed the bugs and found that ants use three out of their six legs at the same time, and that is where they get a good cooperative force.

 The researchers used this technique and they were able to make a team of six microrobots that has the size of a cockroach and weight 3.05 ounces. The microbots amazingly can pull a 3,900-pound car across a smooth concrete floor, Tech Worm reported.

The team has been exploring the limits of friction in these tiny robots that aside from pulling thousands of times of their weight; it can also walk on vertical surfaces like a gecko lizard or sleeping bats.

"By considering the dynamics of the team, not just the individual, we are able to build a team of our 'microTug' robots that, like ants, are super strong individually, but then also work together as a team," said David Christensen, one of the research authors and a graduate student.

The demo robots are equivalent to six humans pulling a weight of an Eiffel Tower and three Statues of Liberty. The robots use its special adhesive inspired by a gecko to be able to pull the car which Christensen uses for commuting to school, according to New York Times.

Christensen together with another graduate student, Srinivasan Suresh; Katie Hahm, a researcher and the mechanical engineering professor Mark Cutkosky have published "Let's All Pull Together: Principles for Sharing Large Loads in Microrobot Teams" last month.

In a video, the team showed how these tiny robots were able to do things when working together.