Whoever is tired of “natural” jellyfish may not be thrilled. Still, the robotic jellyfish from German company Festo was impressive. Perhaps it isn’t the most technically challenging build the firm has produced, yet it was striking… It was unveiled at the World Robot Exhibition in Beijing from 23 to 27 August. And, believe it or not, with slow movements of its “legs” it rose up and glided through the air…
Festo is a German robotics company that specializes in the imitation of living beings. From seagulls to butterflies and tarantulas to jellyfish. If someone says “so what… what value do robotic butterflies have?”, they’d be making a terrible mistake. Festo’s expertise in the complete mimicry of small-scale life forms means solving extremely difficult technical problems, not only of a control nature but also mechanical.
The fact that the results of this specialized research are impressive means that Festo also finds and sells solutions to many other problems in microrobotics.