Soft Robot Can Walk Through Flames, Plow Through Snow and Get Run Over by a Car (VIDEO)

Imagine a robot that can function in snow, walk through flames and even get run over by a car and still work. Do you think it's too impossible to be true? Then think again. Engineers have created the first untethered soft robot, a quadruped that can survive damage and walk away from its designers unscathed.

"Earlier versions of soft robots were all tethered, which works fine in some applications, but what we wanted to do was challenge people's concept of what a robot has to look like," said Michael Tolley, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We think the reason people have settled on using metal and rigid materials for robots is because they're easier to model and control. This work is very inspired by nature, and we wanted to demonstrate that soft materials can also be the basis for robots."

Earlier soft robots were actually no larger than a steno pad. This latest robot, though, is more than half a meter in length. Not only that, but it's strong enough to carry about 7.5 pounds on its back. Yet giving the robot the strength it needed wasn't easy. The untethered robot needed to have air pressures as high as 16 pounds per square inch in order to manage this feat; that's more than double the seven psi used in earlier robot designs.

"As soon as you start thinking about putting the basic components you need to make this work-micro-compressors, controllers and batteries-on an untethered robot, you need a design that can carry those parts," said Tolley. "You need to think about something that can handle much higher pressures, so there are materials challenges and there are design challenges and there are control challenges."

The researchers eventually used a composite silicone rubber made from stiff rubber mixed with hollow glass microspheres in order to reduce the robot's weight. The robot's bottom was made from Kevlar fabric to ensure it was both tough and lightweight. In the end, the researchers created a robot that can hold up to an array of extreme conditions that include everything from snow to water to flames.

The new robot is detailed in the journal Soft Robotics.

Want to see the robot for yourself? Check out the video here.