Students at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences have developed "Ourobot". Their project was supervised by a professor at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and a CITEC researcher. It looks like a bicycle chain, but has just twelve segments about the size of a fist. In each segment there is a motor.

What distinguishes "Ourobot" from other comparable robots are the pressure sensors found in its chain segments which enable it to detect and overcome obstacles. The name of the robot, by the way, was inspired by an ancient Egyptian symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail, the Ouroboros. "At the moment Ourobot can only move straight ahead and cannot manage curves yet, but its sensors can detect obstacles, such as a book, and can traverse them", explains Jan Paskarbeit. The control mechanism behind this, i.e. the way the individual chain links interact in order to roll over an obstacle, involves a complex mathematical task. There is no concrete application for Ourobot at the moment. It is a feasibility study, meaning basic research.

The supervisors' vision is to take the present robot that works in two dimensions "into the third dimension".The team aims to develop a robot that actively changes its form, which can adapt to its environment like an amoeba, capable of stretching and shrinking again. In this way, Ourobot can move through narrow terrain and overcome obstacles by means of different movements. The team has designed different variations of the new 3-D version of Ourobot, similar to a ball or a snake. In this area, however, there is still much research to do.

The robot was developed by four bachelor students in Computer Engineering- Johann Schröder, Adrian Gucze, Simon Beyer and Matthäus Wiltzok. The project was supervised by Professor Dr. Axel Schneider of the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and Jan Paskarbeit from Bielefeld University.

The following video introduces the robot.

Source: Phys.org