VOA常速英语2014--Cheetah's Tail Inspires Model for Robot's Stability 猎豹尾巴启发机器人设计（在线收听）

Cheetah's Tail Inspires Model for Robot's Stability 猎豹尾巴启发机器人设计 

If you speed your bicycle through a curve, you have to lean to the inner side in order to keep your balance. Many fast moving animals do the same, often with additional help from their tails. A young scientist from South Africa successfully employed that concept to stabilize a fast-moving robotic vehicle.

你在骑脚踏车的时候，如果想转弯，必须让身体向转弯的方向倾斜，才能保持平衡。许多快速奔跑的动物也是这样做的。但是动物常常可以用尾巴来帮忙。南非的一位年轻科学家成功的使用了动物尾巴的平衡理念，来稳定迅速移动的机器人。请看美国之音记者普提克的报道。

Many animals use their tails to maintain stability when they run. The fastest land animal, the African cheetah, uses it even while braking.

 许多动物在奔跑的时候用尾巴来保持平衡。陆地上跑得最快的动物非洲猎豹甚至在突然停止奔跑时也使用尾巴。

A young scientist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, Amir Patel, decided to see whether the same principle could be applied to vehicles.

 南非开普敦大学的青年科学家帕泰尔决定尝试车辆能否应用同样的原则。

“To investigate the effect that a swinging - or accelerating and swinging - tail has during a turn, you will see that there is a reactive torque on the rigid body, which would counter that toppling moment and thus keep the body in a straight line," said Patel.

 帕泰尔说：“为了测试一条在加速时左右摇摆的尾巴在转弯时的作用，你会看到，本来僵硬的身体出现一股扭矩，抵消把物体弄翻的力量。因此物体就可以直线前进。”

Patel designed a fast moving, remote-controlled vehicle with a removable tail that can swing from one side to the other.

  帕泰尔设计了一种快速移动的遥控车，它有一条可以摘下来的尾巴。可以左右摇摆。

While cornering at high speed without the tail, the vehicle would lose balance and tip over. Adding the tail with a counterbalance on its end improved the vehicle’s stability.

 机器人高速行驶时如果转弯，会失去平衡翻车。可是在车尾部加上这条尾巴以后，抵消了不平衡力，车子的平衡改善了。

Patel believes the same principle could be applied to sports cars or vehicles for fast-response rescue teams. “We hope to use this application on high-speed, search-and-rescue applications. So where a robot needs to enter a time-critical situation and needs to be able to maneuver, we can use the tail to perform these rapid maneuvers,” he said.

 帕泰尔认为，同样的原理可以应用到跑车和快速反应救援队的车辆上。帕泰尔说：“我们希望，把这种技术用在高速行驶的搜救车上。在机器人需要进入关键时刻的时候，需要做各种复杂的动作。我们可以用一条尾巴来平衡这些快速动作。”

Patel said studying how animals perform in different situations can be converted to mathematical models that may show how robots would do under similar circumstances.

帕泰尔说，研究动物在不同情况下的动作，然后把它变成数学模式，这些模式能显示机器人在类似情形下应该怎么做。