Georgia Tech’s Robot SlothBot does more than just a cute face_01

A natural feature of a robot (I claim) is embodied movement. With robots we tend to focus a lot on movement, and the most dynamic robots get the most attention. That’s not to say that highly dynamic robots don’t deserve our attention, but there are other Robotics philosophies that, while less visually exciting, are equally valuable under the right circumstances. Magnus Egerstedt, a Robotics professor at Georgia Tech, was inspired by some slackers he met in Costa Rica to explore the idea of ​​”slowness as a design paradigm” through an arboreal robot called SlothBot.

Since the robot moves very slowly, why is this robot used? It can be very energy efficient, but certainly not more energy efficient in a static sensing system fixed to a tree or something. The robot moves, of course, but it will also be much more expensive (and possibly much less reliable) than a handful of static sensors that can cover a similar area. However, the problem with static sensors is that they are limited by power availability and cannot be extended with solar panels in environments such as under a dense tree canopy. If your goal is long-term work of a small area (weeks or months or more), SlothBot is uniquely useful in this context because it can crawl under a tree to recharge itself, find some sun to bask in. It returns again after a while to continue collecting data.

SlothBot is an interesting concept that we should ask a few more questions with Egerstedt.