Robotic Octopus Takes First Steps

Anyone who has ever seen an octopus in action can understand why: they're capable of some extraordinary manoeuvres, thanks to relatively large brains, very fine motor control, and a near-total lack of bones. Previously we featured the arm element of the robotic version, and now the tentacles have been brought together.  
The Octopus Project is a European, project that's working on "investigating and understanding the principles that give rise to the octopus sensory-motor capabilities and incorporating them in new design approaches," and their newest design approach is this fully mobile roboctopus with eight soft tentacles.
According to the Octopus Project website:

The grand challenge of the OCTOPUS IP is investigating and understanding the principles that give rise to the octopus sensory-motor capabilities and incorporating them in new design approaches and ICT and robotics technologies to build an embodied artefact, based broadly on the anatomy of the 8-arm body of an octopus, and with similar performance in water, in terms of dexterity, speed, control, flexibility, and applicability.

Eventually the robot may also be able to walk on land like the real thing:




IEEE Spectrum

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