Necrobotics: Turning Dead Spiders into Robots

The future of soft robotic systems.

Witnessing Boston Dynamics’ Atlas perform backflips and achieve viral fame prompted many to consider the future implications of robotics.

Now imagine lab-created, reanimated dead spiders built in a lab that can pick up their own body weight. As it turns out, it already exists. This innovation was inspired by researchers seeking to understand a simple question.

“Why do spiders curl up when they die?”

Spiders do not have antagonistic muscle pairs, like biceps and triceps in humans,” Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice University in Houston, said, “They only have flexor muscles, which allow their legs to curl in, and they extend them outward by hydraulic pressure.”

Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice University in Houston, explains that spiders lack antagonistic muscle pairs, such as biceps and triceps in humans. Instead, they have flexor muscles, which enable their legs to curl inwards. To extend their legs, spiders rely on hydraulic pressure.

In essence, spiders function as hydraulic machines, using blood to extend their legs. When a spider dies and dehydrates over time, its legs curl up towards the abdomen. This occurs because, without blood pressure, spiders lose hydraulic resistance against their flexor muscles, causing contraction.

“We were just thinking that was so cool, we wanted to leverage it”

The researchers started with wolf spider cadavers and attempted to extend their legs using a double boiler, but this method proved unsuccessful. Instead, they inserted a hypodermic needle directly into the spider’s cavity and sealed the incision with superglue to maintain pressure between the cavity and the needle. Surprisingly, this approach worked extremely well.

Typically, spiders utilize the ‘prosome,’ an internal valve within their hydraulic chamber, to control each leg independently. Fortunately for the researchers, dead spiders are unable to control these valves, causing them to remain open. This allows the researchers to manipulate all the legs simultaneously.

One potential application of this technology could be in pick-and-place tasks. It may be particularly useful for repetitive tasks, such as sorting or moving small objects, or even aiding in the assembly of microelectronics.

The lab conducted a durability test on the “necrobot” by cycling its actuation between open and closed states 1,000 times to assess the resilience of its limbs. The results showed that it was relatively robust.

“It starts to experience some wear and tear as we approach 1,000 cycles,” Preston, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Rice, explained. “We believe this is related to dehydration issues in the joints, which could potentially be overcome by applying polymeric coatings.”

News outlets and media were quick to criticize the emerging field of study known as “Necrobotics.” However, Preston sought to reassure the public. “Although it may appear as if the spider has come back to life, we can assure you that it is inanimate. We are using it strictly as a material derived from a once-living spider, which provides us with valuable insights.”

The researchers were awarded the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity to support their future research endeavors.

You can read more about their research here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.202201174

Whether the idea of programmable spider carcasses thrills or terrifies you, the potential to create biodegradable, complex machines holds enormous promise for the future of manufacturing. And who knows, maybe we’ll have autonomous 8-legged eco-friendly robots assembling your phone in the future.

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