Robo Chameleon | Robotic Pet | 4 Directional Remote Control | Magnetic Food | LED Illuminated Body | Moving Eyes and Tail | 3+

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Like the researchers, both Xu and Morin have also worked on bioinspired color-changing materials in the past, using divergent approaches to imitate what the live animals still do best. Researchers in the field are still long ways off, says Xu, and he’s constantly in awe of the physiologies of these actively camouflaging creatures.

With its clunky, segmented body, the robo-chameleon unveiled by South Korean researchers could easily be mistaken for a children’s toy or a real chameleon in body armor. It’s neither. It is, in fact, an embodiment of cutting-edge camouflage technology. To create a model like this, the researchers had to answer two fundamental problems: what will be the input, and what will be the output? For the first, the robo-chameleon collects information about its surroundings through visual cues, similar to a real chameleon. The latter use all-seeing eyeballs to read the environment. The robot uses color sensors to capture the intensity of red, green, and blue light. These primary colors combine to form the colors visible to humans.The last button on the remote changes the colour of the LED so that he can blend in with its environment. My favourite is the blue, but it’s fun changing from colour to colour. Changing colors is not even singularly about camouflage for these lizards. There is growing evidence to suggest that chameleons use it as a way to communicate too. Sometimes, they want to blend into the environment to avoid predators or be inconspicuous to potential prey. Teyssier, J., Saenko, S. V., Van der Marel, D., & Milinkovitch, M. C. (2015). Photonic crystals cause active colour change in chameleons. Nature Communications, 6(1). doi: 10.1038/ncomms7368 The robo-chameleon records the colors in the environment and projects them onto its “skin.” The skin is like a screen where colors and patterns are produced with thermochromic liquid crystal ink, a substance that responds to differences in temperature. Image courtesy of Hyeonseok Kim et al.

It doesn’t sport swivelly eyes or an absurdly long tongue, but a new robot does boast of a chameleon’s most eye-catching trait: being able to change colors on demand.A robot modeled on a chameleon and developed by South Korean researchers can change colors to match its surroundings.

Then comes the more complicated matter of reproducing the legible visuals. Chameleons can display various colors by using the muscle cells of the skin. In the future, the researchers aim to build another color changing icon in the animal kingdom with a squirming chassis to match: an octopus. They’ll borrow the design of the artificial chameleon skin to achieve camouflage in their cephalopod. But “it's movement is much more complex than a chameleon,” says Ko, which is where the main engineering challenge lies. At other times, they have been observed relying on flashy, colorful displays to distinguish themselves, especially when trying to attract mates or frighten off competition.Kim, H., Choi, J., Kim, K. K., Won, P., Hong, S., & Ko, S. H. (2021). Biomimetic chameleon soft robot with artificial crypsis and disruptive coloration skin. Nature Communications, 12(1). doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24916-w We think that if it weren’t for their size, chameleons would get a lot more fame in the animal kingdom. After all, they’re awesome! They’ve got skin that can change colour, eyes that can cover pretty much every angle imaginable, and, of course, elasticated tongues. So, we can completely see why they were the inspiration for the Robo Chameleon! Milinkovitch, who was not involved in the new research, called the technology “impressive,” noting that, in some respects, the robo-chameleon could do even more than its wild-born counterparts.