Sunday, May 4, 2008
Robot Reassembles Itself After Being Kicked Apart
When I saw this cool video @ YouTube of a robot reassembling itself after being kicked apart, I thought "wow, so you can't take these chaps for granted anymore." I recalled reading some prognostications that robots could take over the world in the next 50 years, and thought, hmmm, perhaps it is possible...
Reconfigurable robots are not exactly new.
Modular Reconfigurable Robotics as an approach to building robots for various complex tasks has been around for a while. The idea of reconfigurable robots is as follows: Instead of designing a new and different mechanical robot for each task, you just build many copies of one simple module. The module can't do much by itself, but when you connect many of them together you get a system that can do complicated things. Such a modular robot can even reconfigure itself -- change its shape -- to meet the demands of different tasks or different working environments.
A reconfigurable robot that can reassemble itself is just an extension of reconfigurable robots. The robot you see in the video was developed by roboticists at the University of Pennsylvania and is made of modules that can recognize each other and reassemble when kicked apart.
There are two main motivations to designing self reconfiguring robots. (1) Functional advantage: Self reconfiguring robotic systems are potentially more robust and more adaptive than conventional systems. The reconfiguration ability allows a robot to disassemble and reassemble machines to form new morphologies. These robots are also capable of self-repair. (2) Economic advantage: Self reconfiguring robotic systems can potentially lower overall robot cost by making a range of complex machines out of a single.
Some of the proposed applications for self-reconfiguring robots are in space exploration and in flexible working environments.
Source: Wikipedia
Reconfigurable robots are not exactly new.
Modular Reconfigurable Robotics as an approach to building robots for various complex tasks has been around for a while. The idea of reconfigurable robots is as follows: Instead of designing a new and different mechanical robot for each task, you just build many copies of one simple module. The module can't do much by itself, but when you connect many of them together you get a system that can do complicated things. Such a modular robot can even reconfigure itself -- change its shape -- to meet the demands of different tasks or different working environments.
A reconfigurable robot that can reassemble itself is just an extension of reconfigurable robots. The robot you see in the video was developed by roboticists at the University of Pennsylvania and is made of modules that can recognize each other and reassemble when kicked apart.
There are two main motivations to designing self reconfiguring robots. (1) Functional advantage: Self reconfiguring robotic systems are potentially more robust and more adaptive than conventional systems. The reconfiguration ability allows a robot to disassemble and reassemble machines to form new morphologies. These robots are also capable of self-repair. (2) Economic advantage: Self reconfiguring robotic systems can potentially lower overall robot cost by making a range of complex machines out of a single.
Some of the proposed applications for self-reconfiguring robots are in space exploration and in flexible working environments.
Source: Wikipedia
Labels: Automation
PermaLink - Robot Reassembles Itself After Being Kicked Apart posted by Ecacofonix : 6:34 AM
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