Jerboa evolution to help with future robotic legs
Thanks to Jerboas—small, desert bipedal rodents—researchers from Michigan Engineering and U-C San Diego have discovered something interesting about their evolutionary process that could inform the design of future robotic legs. https://news.engin.umich.edu/2022/10/...
The team found that once evolution set jerboa bones on the path toward fusing together, they overshot the optimum amount of fusing—the structure that best dissipated stresses from jumping and landing—to become fully bonded. The foot bones that are separate in small jerboas are fully fused in large ones, but the bone structures that are best at dissipating the stresses of jumping are only partially fused.
To study the bone performance across species, the researchers performed micro-CT scans and built 3D models of the jerboa metatarsals in software, then scaled them to equal sizes and stress tested them as they hit, flexed and hopped off of a surface.
Read more: https://news.engin.umich.edu/2022/10/...
The team consisted of:
Carla Nathaly Villacís Núñez, U-M doctoral candidate, Mechanical Engineering
Andrew Ray, U-M undergraduate student, Materials Science & Engineering
Talia Moore, U-M assistant professor, Robotics
Kimberly Cooper, professor of developmental biology, U-C San Diego
https://www.embirlab.com/
Footage courtesy of the EMBiR Lab and Christian Baker.
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