Researchers bring back 280-million-year old creature from the dead as a robot

In an effort to learn more about how ancient land-dwelling creatures used to walk, researchers have teamed up to create a lizard-like robot based on fossils around 280 million years old.

A team of paleontologists, engineers and computer scientists have created a robotic Orobates pabsti, a prehistoric creature that crept along the forest floors some 280 millions ago. The creature is also known as a ‘stem amniote’, an offshoot of plant-eating land vertebrates or tetrapods, reported CNET.

The creature evolved to become today’s reptiles, mammals and birds, hence it was chosen to show more how creatures came to move across land and how the diversity of life we can see today came to be.

With the help of ancient fossilized footprints and a complete four-legged skeleton for examining, the team did computer modeling to understand the rhythm of the creature’s movements. Also, researchers used X-ray visions of modern day animals like iguanas, skinks, and caimans walking for creating animations.

The researchers then built the OroBOT, a 4ft long robot version of Orobates, which can physically act out the movements their simulations predicted. With the help of 3D printed parts and 28 motors, the team actually brought back Orobates from the dead, though in robot form.

https://biorob2.epfl.ch/pages/Orobates_interactive/videos/hardware/221_raw_1.mp4

Combining all the data, the researchers concluded that Orobates – that lived before the dinosaurs – were more advanced at getting around than thought, as per the research published in the journal Nature.