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9780262014526

How to Catch a Robot Rat

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780262014526

  • ISBN10:

    0262014521

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Copyright: 2010-08-13
  • Publisher: Mit Pr
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List Price: $7.75

Summary

Humans have modeled their technology on nature for centuries. The inventor of paper was inspired by a wasp's nest; Brunelleschi demonstrated the principles of his famous dome with an egg; a Swiss company produced a wristwatch with an alarm modeled on the sound-producing capabilities of a cricket. Today, in the era of the "new bionics," engineers aim to reproduce the speed and maneuverability of the red tuna in a submarine; cochlear implants send sound signals to the auditory nerve of a hearing-impaired person; and robots replicate a baby's cognitive development. How to Catch a Robot Ratexamines past, present, and future attempts to apply the methods and systems found in nature to the design of objects and devices. The authors look at "natural technology transfers": how the study of nature inspired technological breakthroughs-including the cricket-inspired watch; Velcro, which duplicates the prickly burrs of a burdock flower; and self-sharpening blades that are modeled on rats' self-sharpening teeth. They examine autonomous robots that imitate animals and their behaviors-for example, the development of an unmanned microdrone that could fly like an albatross. And they describe hybrids of natural and artificial systems: neuroprostheses translating the thought of quadriplegics; and a nanorobot controlled by muscle cells. Some of the ideas described have outstripped technology's capacity to realize them; nature has had more than three billion years to perfect its designs, humankind not quite so long.

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