This hexapod robot recognizes its surroundings using a vision system that occupies less storage space than a single photo on your phone. Running the new system uses only 10 percent of the energy required by conventional location systems, researchers report in the June Science Robotics.
Such a low-power ‘eye’ could be extremely useful for robots involved in space and undersea exploration, as well as for drones or microrobots, such as those that examine the digestive tract, says roboticist Yulia Sandamirskaya of Zurich University of Applied Sciences, who was not involved in the study.
The system, known as LENS, consists of a sensor, a chip and a super-tiny AI model