A miracle soft robot – no electronics, no AI, just air!
Interacting with its surroundings, this robot synchronizes its movements on land and in water
The research team from AMOLF took a very different approach and, to their own surprise they ended up with a clever robot. No electronics or AI has been used in this development. The inspiration was from the wobbly air figures that dance in front of gas stations. The robot uses only a continues stream of air to move its legs. The team was most surprised by the spontaneous synchronisation:
“Suddenly, order emerges from chaos,” says first author Alberto Comoretto. “There’s no code, no instructions. The legs simply fall into sync spontaneously, and the robot takes off.” As with fireflies flashing in synchrony or heart cells pulsating in unison, complex collective motions arise from simple interactions.
Decentralized Intelligence
And the team also was surprised by the fast that the synchronisation adapts, from the report:
If the robot runs into an obstacle, it reorients itself. When it moves from land to water, the gait spontaneously shifts from an in-phase hopping pattern to a swimming freestyle. These transitions happen without any central processor or control logic. Instead, movement emerges from the tight coupling between body and environment.
“In biology, we often see similar decentralized intelligence,” explains co-author Mannus Schomaker. “Sea stars, for example, coordinate hundreds of tube feet using local feedback and body dynamics, not a centralized brain.”
The research challenges the conventional idea that robots need complicated control systems to realize lifelike behavior. “Simple objects, like tubes, can give rise to complex and functional behavior, provided we understand how to harness the underlying physics,” says principal investigator Bas Overvelde. In fact, Overvelde prefers not to call it a robot at all. “There is no brain, no computer. Essentially, it’s a machine. But when properly designed, it can outperform many robotic systems and behave like an artificial creature.”
More details on the Amolf website: https://amolf.nl/news/this-soft-robot-thinks-with-its-legs
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