Comparison of gecko and robot landings (IMAGE)

University of California - Berkeley

Comparison of gecko and robot landings

Caption

The Asian flat-tailed gecko would prefer a four-point landing after leaping to a tree trunk, but if it can't slow down sufficiently, it may have to crash head first into the trunk, rebounding but stabilizing itself with its tail. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany built a soft robot with an active tail to replicate this behavior.

Credit

Photos by Ardian Jusufi, illustration by Andre Wee

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