Ourobot consists of twelve chain links about the size of a fist. There is a drive in each of the links. Four students from the Bachelor's degree course in Computer Engineering at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences have developed the robot - the wheel 2.0. Professor Dr. Axel Schneider from the Department of Engineering and Mathematics at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences is supervising the students. Jan Paskarbeit from the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University is also supporting the project.

In contrast to comparable robots, the chain segments are equipped with pressure sensors so that 'Ourobot' can also overcome obstacles. The name is based on the ancient Egyptian symbol 'Ouroboros' - a snake that consumes itself. "At the moment, Ourobot can only drive in a straight line and cannot yet turn corners, but the sensors enable it to recognize obstacles and roll over a book, for example," explains Paskarbeit. The interaction of the individual links when rolling over the obstacle is a complex mathematical task. According to Schneider, there is no concrete application for the Ourobot yet. It is a feasibility study, in other words pure basic research.

A highlight for the team was attending the international robotics conference ICRA in Stockholm in May this year. The scientific publication on 'Ourobot' was met with great interest there. However, the 'Ourobot' project is far from complete and is constantly being developed further. The vision of the supervisors is to "go into the third dimension" with the robot, which currently works in two dimensions. The robot is to become actively deformable and adapt to its environment like an amoeba - expanding and shrinking again. In this way, Ourobot could move through narrow terrain and overcome obstacles through various movements. For the 3D version of the Ourobot, the researchers have designed different movement variants that resemble those of a ball or a snake. However, there is still a lot of development work to be done.