For decades we have been trying to make the robots smarter and physically able to imitate biological intelligence and movement. “But we have only replicated the results of biological evolution – I say we should replicate the methods,” argues Philippe Wyder, a researcher of development robotics at Columbia University. Wyder led a team that demonstrated a machine with a rudimentary form of what they call a metabolism.
He and his colleagues built a robot that could consume other robots to grow physically, to become stronger, more capable and to continue to function.
The methods of nature
The idea of robot metabolism combines various concepts in AI and robotics. The first is artificial life, which Wyder 'called a field where people study the evolution of organisms through computer simulations'. Then there is the idea of modular robots: re -configurable machines that can change their architecture by rearranging collections of basic modules. In the US Pioneer in the US by Daniela Rus or Mark Yim at Carnegie Mellon University in the 1990s.
Finally, there is the idea that we need a shift from a targeted design that we have traditionally implemented in our machines into a survival -oriented design in living organisms, which Magnus Egerstedt has presented in his book Robotecology.
The Wyder team took all these ideas, she merged and prototyped a robot that could 'eat' other robots. “I came up with a little from many different angles,” says Wyder.
However, the most important source of inspiration was the way in which nature builds up its organisms. 20 standard amino acids are universally used by life that can be combined into trillion proteins, which forms the building blocks of countless life forms. Wyder began to design his project by designing a simple robot module that was meant to play a role that is about equivalent to a single amino acid. This module, called a truss -link, looked like a rod, was 16 centimeters long and contained batteries, electronic controllers and servomotors then able to expand, contract and crawl in a straight line. They had permanent magnets at each end, so that they could connect to other bars and form lightweight grilles.
