Scientists create the first walking robot that moves without GPS

ANTBOT, the brand-new robot designed by CNRS and Aix-marseille University (AMU) researchers at ISM, copies the desert ants’ exceptional navigation capacities.

It is equipped with an optical compass used to determine its heading by means of polarized light, and by an optical movement sensor directed to the sun to measure the distance covered. Armed with this information, Antbot has been shown to be able, like the desert ants, to explore its environment and to return on its own to its base, with precision of up to 1 cm after having covered a total distance of 14 metres.

Weighing only 2.3 kg, this robot has six feet for increased mobility, allowing it to move in complex environments, precisely where deploying wheeled robots and drones can be complicated (disaster areas, rugged terrain, exploration of extraterrestrial soils etc.).

The optical compass* developed by the scientists is sensitive to the sky’s polarized ultraviolet radiation. Using this “celestial compass”, Antbot measures its heading with 0.4° precision by clear or cloudy weather. The navigation precision achieved with minimalist sensors proves that bioinspired robotics has immense capacity for innovation. Here we have a trio of advances. A novel robot has been developed, new, innovative and unconventional optical sensors have been designed, and Antbot brings new understanding on how desert ants navigate, by testing several models that biologists have imagined to mimic this animal.

Before exploring potential applications in aerial robotics or in the automobile industry, for example, progress must be made, for instance in how to operate this robot at night or over longer distances.