DARPA's Advanced Inflatable Robot Is Softer, Lighter, But Brawnier!

This ain't Sparta, and DARPA knows it. So to totally refurbish the military's future, it has been working on a warbot that's soft, light and inflatable. And iRobot will rightfully get the award it deserves from Pentagon’s blue-sky research wing, as much as $625,000, for developing this inflatable robotic arm capable of lifting weights four times its own. The Advanced Inflatable Robot (AIR), is still at the prototype stage and still doesn't meet the exact requirements of DoD. But it indeed is a step into the future that DARPA has been dreaming for long now, a future that sees portable and deployable systems that could execute any mission that's asked of them, while their human operators could handle all other necessary operations safely.

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Shown below in the video is the AIR, which can lift just two or three pounds at present, not at par with military standards. But the point to be noted is, the arm itself is half-pounder, so that makes even two/three pounds look huge. Also, it is so programmed that when it runs into a person, it would bend and not bash, thus making it safer to be used in areas which boasts a huge human count. Do not miss the following video -