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Robin Murphy, a robotics professor at Texas A&M University, is taking on the robots of sci-fi in a new series for the academic journal Science Robotics. First up: R2-D2 and BB-8, the beloved droids of Star Wars.The first paper, published recently, examines the real-world feasibility of the two breakout bots. While astromech droids are cute and useful in the galaxy far, far away, they wouldn't be all that useful here on Earth.Part of the problem is that the robots don't have arms, only a series of tools underneath their shell. Murphy says the kind of "multitool" seen in the movies is far from feasible. Yes, these are sci-fi tools, but most functional robots in the real world have at least something resembling human arms—which probably rules out the stiff-limbed C3PO as an effective bot as well.Consider NASA's Robonaut, Murphy says. "The first thing about it is that Robonaut has arms, it doesn’t have legs," she says. The arms make the robot capable of "manipulation and handling tools and other objects." That makes Robonaut the opposite of an astromech like R2-D2, since it's all arms instead of all legs. But that fact also makes it well suited to life in space, where it can lend astronauts a hand or even do a few basic tasks (like changing air filters) itself. Murphy also points to the problem of BB-8's locomotion in the desert. Sphero famously built a model of the droid that works great across a hardwood floor, but placing it in the desert just creates a mess. Murphy found more versatile robots with lizard- or snake-like locomotion did best navigating the sand. However, both R2 and BB-8 do something that has proven useful in robotics: given non-vocal feedback through beeps and whistles. "That nonverbal communication works very well," Murphy says. "We do a lot of that signaling to each other that gives a hint to what we’re thinking and what’s coming up next." When it comes to human-robot interaction, Murphy says that these signals "shows they’re alive, engaged and makes you want to interact with them more."Next up on the robot debunking docket for Murphy? Taking on the giant mechs seen in Pacific Rim in a to-be-published paper. In that movie, giant robots need to be controlled by a team of pilots controlling different functions of the bot. The idea of human-powered mechs already has real life applications. "There’s been amazing work in rehabilitation, in power assists that you can do, but maybe not require people to be telepathically linked." Real-world exoskeletons or mechs usually don't require two pilots, though. Murphy says that as these systems scale up, so too does the need for automation. In the end, Murphy's series could unveil where science fiction has given us real, working ideas in robotics... though given some of the pratfalls that even Boston Dynamics' fleet of bots suffer, we're still a long way off from having anything quite as elegant as what we see on screen."I was inspired as a kid by science fiction, and it’s kind of fun to turn them into teachable moments," Murphy says.