Colorado State's TeCoBots bend like an elephant's trunk and link into larger machines

Colorado State University researchers have built robots that bend like an elephant's trunk, grasp objects and connect with each other into larger structures, in work published in Nature Machine Intelligence. The robots are called TeCoBots.

Each unit has a tubular body with grippers at both ends. The design uses tensegrity: rigid rods held by tensioned cables rather than fixed directly to one another, so the body can compress, stretch and curve without conventional joints. The grippers both hold objects and dock with other units, with no magnets needed, and linked modules can form chains, rings and branches.

The team sees uses in search and rescue, manufacturing and space exploration, where flexible bodies can reach places rigid robots cannot. Two units have already located and connected to each other autonomously; the researchers now want more speed and more independent operation, and eventually groups of tens or hundreds of TeCoBots working with little human supervision.