They bring a prehistoric sea creature to life with the help of a robot

Robotics is reaching unexpected levels and is already empirically demonstrating notable advances in scientific disciplines such as paleontologywho used this level of engineering to form the ancient creatures that inhabited Earth millions of years ago.

This is the case researchers from Carnegie Mellon University Department of Mechanical EngineeringWhat In collaboration with paleontologists from Spain and Poland, they are pioneering paleobionics, a field that aims to use softbots, robotics with flexible electronics and soft materials, to understand the biomechanical factors that drove evolution using extinct organisms.

“Our goal is to use Softbotics to bring biological systems back to life, in the sense that we can mimic them to understand how they work,” said Phil Leduc, professor of mechanical engineering.

Using computer modeling and soft robots, a research team led by LeDuc and Carmel Majidi gave new life to a pleurocystitide, a marine organism that existed nearly 450 million years ago. Pleurocystitidae, a member of the echinoderm class that includes starfish and modern sea urchins, were among the first echinoderms capable of locomotion using a muscular stalk.

“Softbottics is another approach to informing science by using soft materials to create flexible robotic limbs and appendages. Many fundamental principles of biology and nature can only be fully explained if we look back at the chronology of animal evolution. “We’re building robot analogues to study how locomotion has changed,” explained Majidi, lead author and professor of mechanical engineering.

To create the robot, the team used fossil evidence as well as a combination of 3D printed elements and polymers to mimic the flexible columnar structure of a mobile appendage. They showed that pleurocystitides were likely able to move along the seafloor using a rod that propelled the animal forward, and determined that wide, sweeping movements were likely the most efficient movements. It was also found that increasing the length of the stem significantly increased the speed of the animals without forcing them to exert more energy.

“Researchers in the bioinspired robotics community must select important features that are worth adopting from organisms over time,” said Richard Desatnik, PhD candidate and senior author.

“Essentially, we need to choose good locomotion strategies for our robots. For example, would a robotic starfish really need to use 5 limbs to move, or can we find a better strategy?” added CMU alumnus and co-author Zach Patterson.

“Giving new life to something that existed almost 500 million years ago is exciting in itself, but what really excites us about this breakthrough is how much we can learn from it,” Leduc said. “We’re not just studying fossils in the earth, we’re trying to better understand life by working with incredible paleontologists.”