Thanks to smart artificial intelligence assistants like Siri and Alexa, we’re used to having a personal A.I. on hand whenever and wherever we might need it. However, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab have been working on the next iteration of this kind of personalized tech: A palm-sized personal robot that is designed to literally crawl over your body. Called Skinbot, it carries out this movement using suction-cup feet that are modeled on the adhesive abilities of leeches or cephalopods.
“The idea is making wearable robots that move around your body, kind of like small robotic companions that help you,” Artem Dementyev, a Ph.D. student in the MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments Group, told Digital Trends.