Velox is a drone, generator, and robotic animal all in one. It can cover nearly every type of terrain on land and make way through water, transitioning seamlessly between the two different environments. Since it was initially designed to be a green generator, it can charge itself as it moves.
Lately, there’s been lots of news with the Boston Dynamics family of robots. There’s the four-legged Cheetah that can do backflips, Spot working with the police and in clinics helping out with the coronavirus pandemic, Atlas, who can dance better than most people, and Handle diligently moving parcels.
Velox is different. For one, it has no legs. Yet, it can crawl and swim. Its creepy and graceful mobility comes from a pair of undulating fins that were designed to harness the power of the ocean.
The evolution of generator to amphibious robot caught the attention of investors like the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. They wanted a robot that could traverse different types of terrain with ease. Such institutions see Velox as the ultimate tool for surveillance missions thanks to its stealth characteristics.
Pietro Filardo, the founder and CEO of Pliant Energy Systems, explained to Mashable:
The primary advantage of a robot-like Velox is that it can go in water and on land, so you don’t have to send two robots for one mission. If you’re on an extended mission and your batteries are running low, to be able to recharge your own batteries is a very key advantage.
Plus, it’s resistant to entanglement in aquatic debris and can crawl on sand, snow, and ice. Once Pliant Energy Systems decided to make a robot, it looked to the animal kingdom for inspiration. It explains on its website:
Velox can use several locomotion modes found in the animal kingdom using just one pair of fins. These fins are best described as four-dimensional objects with a hyperbolic geometry that allows the robot to swim like a ray, crawl like a millipede, jet-like a squid, and slide like a snake.
A craft equipped with this system has unprecedented freedom to travel through a range of environments in a single mission. As an underwater vehicle, the robot’s ability to instantly reverse direction and do quick turns makes it ideal for tasks such as coral reef inspection or dragon fish hunting, where a craft must rapidly maneuver to look around and between objects.
And Velox’s potential goes beyond a well-capable surveillance drone. The team envisions it can serve as a propulsion system for divers, drag victims out of frozen water, and replace traditional boat propellers on vehicles that need to plow through debris-filled waters. The machine is scalable, so the possibilities are endless!
