Roboticists at The Faboratory at Yale University have developed a way for soft robots to mimic the abilities of animals and insects such as reptiles self-amputating limbs and ants fusing their bodies. In one video, a soft quadruped robot is seen crawling when a falling rock traps its back leg. The reversible joint attaching the leg is heated with current, allowing the robot to break free of its leg and escape. The limb can be re-attached as well.
Another video shows a single crawler robot that cannot cross a gap between tables. However, three robots can fuse together using joints heated and softened by electric current, allowing them to cross the gap as a single unit. These capabilities are not entirely new to robotics, especially modular robotics, but existing systems based on mechanical connections and magnets are rigid. The innovation here lies in the joints made of a material called a bicontinuous thermoplastic foam and a sticky polymer. This combination allows the joint to be melted, pulled apart, and stuck back together.
The roboticists detailed their work in a paper titled “Self-Amputating and Interfusing Machines,” published in Advanced Materials. They suggest that using their techniques could lead to future robots capable of radical shape-shifting through autotomy and interfusion.
The question is, is this more or less eerie than a smiling robot face with living skin? Share your thoughts.
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