Squirrels are incredible at jumping and balancing, effortlessly landing on the narrowest of branches. Squirrel’s that level of control is pretty impressive, and researchers wanted to see if they could teach a robot to do the same. That's how researchers came up with Salto.
Salto is a small, one-legged robot developed by a team of biologists and engineers at UC Berkeley. This robot mimics how squirrels jump and land on branches. Originally designed a decade ago and later improved after several developments and research.
Salto uses a reaction wheel to stay balanced, just like how we wave our arms to keep steady and adjust our legs for a perfect landing. After studying how squirrels do perfect landings after big jumps, they used that technique in Salto. They also found that squirrels do a front-handstand when landing, absorbing most of the impact with their front legs. They also adjust Salto's leg force to prevent overshooting or falling short. This made Salto better at landing on branches, even without gripping.
The team is also working on another one-legged robot project, called LEAP, designed for extreme environments like Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. He believes a single leg is best for powerful jumps, especially when jumping really high. In the future, better grippers could help Salto land on different surfaces, just like squirrels. But this clever engineering is a step forward for self-balancing and jumping robots.
