Biomimicry

According to Japanese robotics firm TMSUK, there's currently a shortage of sewer-inspection workers in that country. The company has therefore set out to streamline the workload for existing workers, by making a sewage-pipe-inspecting robotic spider.

The flexible "fingers" at the tip of an elephant's trunk have provided the inspiration for a robotic gripper capable of picking up and holding onto a variety of objects both large and small – from a thin acupuncture needle to a large packaging box.

Folks with a soft touch seem to have no problem getting to grips with delicate objects, but it can be a tough ask for robots. Researchers have taken a strength-in-numbers approach with a gripper that curls multiple tubes around a fragile object.

Imagine if there were a robotic fish that filtered microplastic particles out of the water as it swam. Well, now there is one, and it's the physical version of the winning concept in the first-ever Natural Robotics Contest.

The tiny Pacific mole crab (Emerita analoga) has a unique talent, in that it can burrow straight down into the sand using its flexible legs. An experimental new robot copies that capability, and it could actually have some practical applications.

Clone Robotics is going to impressive lengths to make sure its "intelligent androids" will have some of the most human-like hands in the business, and watching the way their hydraulic "muscles" move under a transparent skin is absolutely hypnotic.

While we've seen a number of robotic grippers inspired by various animals, US scientists have now taken a much more "direct" approach. They've devised a method of using actual dead spiders to delicately grasp small objects.

Scientists have developed a glove for gripping underwater objects that takes its design cues from an octopus, featuring rubber suckers and a sophisticated sensing capability that mimic the sea creature's unique muscular and nervous systems.

Scientists studying the makeup of limpet teeth have drawn inspiration from the way they form to create a composite biomaterial with extreme strength that could provide a more sustainable alternative to high-performance materials such as Kevlar.

We've heard about robots that communicate with one another via wireless networks, in order to collaborate on tasks. Sometimes, however, such networks aren't an option. A new bee-inspired technique gets the bots to "dance" instead.

Two years ago, scientists at the University of Bristol discovered that some moths evade bats via sound-absorbing scales on their body. New research now suggests that wallpaper inspired by those scales could be used to block out unwanted noises.

We've been hearing a lot about synthetic skins made for robotic hands, which would give the devices human-like qualities. Scientists in Japan have gone a step further, by covering a robotic finger in a self-healing skin made from live human cells.