Assistant Professor of Engineering Will Johnson recently published a paper in Nature Machine Intelligence entitled "Impact-resistant autonomous robots inspired by tensegrity architecture."

Tensegrity, or tensional integrity, refers to a design principle in which structures use compression members, such as wooden or metal struts, that are held together by tensional members, such as strings or wires. Although the struts never touch and appear to be floating, the structure maintains a rigid form.

Using this concept, Johnson and his collaborators developed Tribar, a three-bar tensegrity robot capable of surviving high-impact landings, and believe that its ability to withstand these impacts could have practical applications in space for planetary rovers or on Earth in disaster zones needing aerial support.