{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,20]],"date-time":"2026-04-20T10:28:47Z","timestamp":1776680927946,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":65,"publisher":"American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)","issue":"85","content-domain":{"domain":["www.science.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Sci. Robot."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,20]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>In early 2016, we had the opportunity to test a pair of sprawling posture robots, one designed to mimic a crocodile and another designed to mimic a monitor lizard, along the banks of the Nile River in Uganda, Africa. These robots were developed uniquely for a documentary by the BBC called Spy in the Wild and fell at the intersection of our interests in developing robots to study animals and robots for disaster response and other missions in challenging environments. The documentary required that these robots not only walk and swim in the same harsh, natural environments as the animals that they were modeled on and film up close but also move and even look exactly like the real animals from an aesthetic perspective. This pushed us to take a fundamentally different approach to the design and building of biorobots compared with our typical laboratory-residing robots, in addition to collaborating with sculpting artists to enhance our robots\u2019 aesthetics. The robots needed to be designed on the basis of a systematic study of data on the model specimens, be fabricated rapidly, and be reliable and robust enough to handle what the wild would throw at them. Here, we share the research efforts of this collaboration, the design specifications of the robots\u2019 hardware and software, the lessons learned from testing these robots in the field first hand, and how the eye-opening experience shaped our subsequent work on disaster response robotics and biorobotics for challenging amphibious scenarios.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1126\/scirobotics.add8662","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,6]],"date-time":"2023-12-06T18:58:45Z","timestamp":1701889125000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.34133\/aaas_crossmark","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":27,"title":["Animal robots in the African wilderness: Lessons learned and outlook for field robotics"],"prefix":"10.1126","volume":"8","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1869-412X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Kamilo","family":"Melo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"KM-RoBoTa S\u00e0rl, Renens, Switzerland."},{"name":"\u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland."}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8318-2916","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Tomislav","family":"Horvat","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"\u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland."},{"name":"Verity AG, Zurich, Switzerland."}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1417-9980","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Auke J.","family":"Ijspeert","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"\u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland."}]}],"member":"221","reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rsif.2015.1089"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41586-018-0851-2"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1096-3642.1961.tb00220.x"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1469-7998.1999.tb00200.x"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_6_2","unstructured":"BBC \u201cBBC One - Spy in the Wild\u201d; www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b088t67m."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_7_2","unstructured":"R. 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