0:00:02 > 0:00:03'Animals are amazing...'
0:00:03 > 0:00:05That's astonishing.
0:00:05 > 0:00:09'..and the more we find out about them, the more amazing they seem.'
0:00:09 > 0:00:11That feels pretty harsh.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14'That's why scientists all over the world
0:00:14 > 0:00:16'are trying their best to copy them...'
0:00:16 > 0:00:17This is the future.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19'..making brand-new inventions...'
0:00:19 > 0:00:20Tomato juice.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22'..based on what animals can do.
0:00:23 > 0:00:25'Some are astounding...'
0:00:25 > 0:00:27We've just dived under the sea.
0:00:27 > 0:00:28'..some bizarre...'
0:00:28 > 0:00:30This is not at all pleasant.
0:00:32 > 0:00:33Yes! It's gone!
0:00:34 > 0:00:39'..but they're also inspired by the miracles of nature.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43'Episode five -
0:00:43 > 0:00:48'how a seal's whiskers can help a truck drive itself.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58'Whiskers are remarkable tools and we can prove it.
0:00:58 > 0:01:04'All we need is a remote-controlled submarine, a friendly seal
0:01:04 > 0:01:06'and a blindfold.'
0:01:06 > 0:01:09- How are you going to put a blindfold on a seal?- Oh, that's easy.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12- We trained this and now he's jumping through the mask.- No, he's not.
0:01:14 > 0:01:15He jumps through it.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19- RICHARD LAUGHS - That's astonishing!
0:01:19 > 0:01:21'Having jumped into his blindfold,
0:01:21 > 0:01:24'Henry obligingly moves into his starting position.
0:01:26 > 0:01:28'Sven puts headphones over his ears,
0:01:28 > 0:01:33'so Henry can't see, and as long as those headphones are on,
0:01:33 > 0:01:34'he can't hear.'
0:01:35 > 0:01:39- OK, so when you say "go", I go. - OK, go.- Go.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43My job is to control the model submarine.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47I can send it anywhere in the pool.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51And Henry knows that if he finds it, he'll get a fish.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56But he'll only get the chance to start his search
0:01:56 > 0:01:59when I've stopped the sub completely,
0:01:59 > 0:02:02so there's no motor noise or splashing to help him locate it.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08OK, Henry. Do your stuff.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18- He's found it! He found it blindfold.- Yeah.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22He's not using his eyes - he can't. There's nothing to hear,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25because it's not running any more, I've stopped it. That's astonishing.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31'And it looks like Henry wants to play again.'
0:02:39 > 0:02:42But it doesn't matter how many times we do it,
0:02:42 > 0:02:47or what route I choose for the sub. Henry finds it every single time.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50- Good!- Oh, that was fantastic.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56And it's not just the fact he finds it that's impressive -
0:02:56 > 0:02:59it's the way he finds it.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04He swims the exact same route as the sub.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15What a clever boy.
0:03:15 > 0:03:20'Believe it or not, Henry is finding the sub with his whiskers.
0:03:21 > 0:03:26'They're so sensitive that they're picking up the underwater trail
0:03:26 > 0:03:28'the sub has left behind.'
0:03:28 > 0:03:30That's amazing. Do it again.
0:03:47 > 0:03:48SQUEAKING
0:03:48 > 0:03:52And he swam the exact trail of where it had been.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54That's astonishing.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02This whole concept of whiskers letting you feel your way around
0:04:02 > 0:04:05is something that I can use myself.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08This is a very big car and, historically,
0:04:08 > 0:04:12I have struggled to put the thing away, back it into the garage.
0:04:12 > 0:04:13Not any more,
0:04:13 > 0:04:18because what I have here is a set of purpose-built whiskers.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21I'll be able to feel my way into the garage.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24Ah, this is going to be brilliant. Right, let me explain.
0:04:24 > 0:04:26These are the whiskers, obviously.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30When it encounters, let's say, a garage door or the wall at the back,
0:04:30 > 0:04:33it moves. And when it does that,
0:04:33 > 0:04:35it moves inside this little loop of metal,
0:04:35 > 0:04:39which touches this coil on the outside of the whisker, like that.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43And I can demonstrate with the control box, here. You see?
0:04:43 > 0:04:47That whisker's touching, it lights up.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51And that's pretty much how a real whisker works.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55The bristle itself has no feeling at all, but the movement
0:04:55 > 0:05:01against nerve endings at its base sends signals back to the brain.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Right, that's fitted. This is brilliant.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08There's actually no technology here that they didn't have in 1934,
0:05:08 > 0:05:12so I don't know why they didn't fit it as standard.
0:05:12 > 0:05:13Right...
0:05:15 > 0:05:17Oh, yeah!
0:05:17 > 0:05:18ENGINE STARTS
0:05:19 > 0:05:21Ooo-ooh!
0:05:21 > 0:05:24Right, I'm slightly scared all of a sudden.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30It's at this point you should probably know that this car
0:05:30 > 0:05:32used to drive the Queen Mum about.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35And it's actually worth quite a bit.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40Oh, hang on, I've got a contact there.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44So that tells me I should move a bit further that way.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51It works!
0:05:51 > 0:05:53Well, I think this is straight.
0:05:53 > 0:05:58Let's have a go. No lights, so I think I'm through. Yes!
0:06:01 > 0:06:03Whoa, there we go!
0:06:03 > 0:06:06I'm in!
0:06:07 > 0:06:14It turns out that if you scale that exact same idea up, quite a lot,
0:06:14 > 0:06:17you end up with something pretty cool.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38ENGINE REVS
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Oh! We're off.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51This is the TerraMax.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56It's a ten-tonne, six-wheel-drive military truck.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59There's nobody in here but me, and I'm not driving.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04Yeah, it's driving itself.
0:07:04 > 0:07:06And it really is.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12It's not remote-controlled, it's not some glorified form of sat nav
0:07:12 > 0:07:16and there's no hidden driver.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Which begs the question - how can it see where it's going?
0:07:23 > 0:07:26In fact, it's using whiskers.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30All right, if it's got whiskers, where are they?
0:07:32 > 0:07:36But these are a very special sort of whisker.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38Because they're invisible.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43In fact, they're lasers.
0:07:44 > 0:07:49Up on the roof, that spinning cylinder houses 64 of them,
0:07:49 > 0:07:52each one revolving 15 times a second.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58And that equates to it managing to gather, every second,
0:07:58 > 0:08:021.3 million touches on the landscape.
0:08:06 > 0:08:07And this is what that looks like.
0:08:09 > 0:08:15Each tiny dot on the screen shows a point a laser whisker has touched.
0:08:17 > 0:08:22Build those up over a couple of seconds and the TerraMax gets
0:08:22 > 0:08:26an astonishingly accurate map of its surroundings.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31But what would happen if they came upon something unexpected?
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Something like this...
0:08:37 > 0:08:40..12 concrete-filled bollards.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09It should be terrifying, but it kind of isn't.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12It's kind of joyous. This thing has a personality.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15It's as close to alive as I can imagine a truck being.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19This is the future.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24This little truck, with its array of whiskers that work in exactly
0:09:24 > 0:09:26the same way that a harbour seal's whiskers do -
0:09:26 > 0:09:29it's just that these are lasers - is the future.
0:09:29 > 0:09:31This is what we'll all be in.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36It's brilliant.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44A self-driving truck based on a seal's whiskers -
0:09:44 > 0:09:46just another of the miracles of nature.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd