Cute robots are saving the world

An unlikely hero is being trained to help in disaster zones. This hero is small, curious and has an excellent sense of smell. It’s also a rat.

This is not a scene from a movie. A Belgian non-profit named APOPO is training real rats to wear tiny, high-tech backpacks to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings. This project is part of a global trend. Researchers are creating a new generation of helpful robots, often inspired by animals, to solve some of our biggest problems. These cute creations are working everywhere from disaster sites to the Florida Everglades. The trend is also happening right here at Ohio University. 

This new generation of robots combines animal instinct with modern technology. In the words of Donna Kean, lead scientist for the "Rescue Rats" project, rats are "typically quite curious and like to explore – and that is key for search and rescue." Their small size allows them to go where humans and dogs cannot, while their high-tech backpacks allow rescue teams to see and communicate with trapped survivors.

In Florida, a different kind of animal robot is tackling an environmental crisis. To combat invasive Burmese pythons, researchers are deploying robotic rabbits. These decoys look, move and even smell like a real rabbit, luring the hard-to-find snakes out of hiding so they can be safely removed. 

At MIT, researchers have built a tiny robot that flies like a bumblebee. The machine weighs less than a paperclip and is designed to one day help with artificial pollination in places where real bees cannot survive.

OHIO student Brock Klamfoth is also bringing animatronics to life. He is a fourth-year computer science major who works in a research role in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology making animatronics "both physically and digitally." His passion is evident in two distinct projects.

The first is a little robot parrot named Maxwell that "sings and dances for people," much like an attraction at a theme park. More than just an entertaining project, Maxwell serves a key educational purpose. 

"The way I see Maxwell is a good introduction for how to build animatronics as well as how to animate them," Klamfoth says. "It is mainly aimed for introducing people to robotics... an easy and relatively cheap way of learning about the animatronic/robot design and building process."

His main focus now is his senior capstone project, a humanoid robot head named EVA. It is designed to "mimic anything a human head can do," he says. In its current form, it can move its head, simulate emotions and hold scripted conversations, but Klamfoth and his senior capstone team are already deep into the next phase: to use generative AI to allow for completely unscripted conversations, to enhance the eye-tracking so it can identify more than just colors and even to smooth out its jaw movement.

To perfect the robot, the team is also building out a "digital twin." This is a virtual version of the robot that will be synced to the physical one. 

"If one of the robots moves," Klamfoth explains, "the other one [moves] as well." This allows the team to test animations and troubleshoot code, making sure both versions work in perfect harmony.