Forget iRobot—the androids of the future could look a lot less humanoid, and a lot more like shrimp.
That's if the US Army has anything to say about it. The world's largest military is conducting an ongoing study into a 'murder shrimp' capable of the world's strongest punch relative to its size.
There are more than 450 species of mantis shrimp, an extraterrestrial-looking crustacean that lives in burrows on the sea floor and can punch well above its weight.
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It may only be four inches long, but these eerie-looking sea bugs can punch so hard they can shatter aquarium glass and even break human bone, earning them the nickname 'thumb splitters'.
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Dr Dean Culver, program manager for the US Army's Combat Capabilities research laboratory, said: "The idea of a loaded spring released by a latch is a staple in mechanical design, but the research team cleverly observed that engineers have yet to achieve the same performance out of a Latch-Mediated Spring Actuator that we find in nature."
Dr Culver added: "By more closely mimicking the geometry of a mantis shrimp's physiology, the team was able to exceed accelerations produced by limbs in other robotic devices by more than tenfold."
The device they created could pave the way for robots that mimic other animals as well as the mantis shrimp, such as high-jumping frogs and tough-as-nails ants.
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