Packing a full-size robot for space travel It can be a bit of a challenge because rockets going to the Moon, or maybe even Mars, can be a little tight. The solution: a modular robot that can be assembled from smaller parts that snap together to form a swarm of connected pieces, all of it sharing same brain.
A team of engineers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) has designed Mori3, a robot that can transform from a basic triangular shape into almost any 3D object. The idea is to have individual units that come together in different shapes to serve a variety of tasks through a process known as a polygon network, according to a new process. paper Posted in Nature’s machine intelligence.
Researchers believe that Mori3 could one day help astronauts set up colonies on the Moon, and possibly Mars in the distant future. “Our goal with Mori3 is to create a modular origami-like robot that can be assembled and disassembled at will depending on the environment and the task at hand,” said Jamie Pike, director of the Reconfigurable Robotics Lab. statement. Mori3 can change its size and shape And the job. ”
On their own each piece doesn’t look like much, but when connected to each other, the triangle pieces act as a swarm. The Mori3 robot is actually pretty autonomous –It is able to change Figure, tie the same for different pieces, And these pieces can connect with each other to form a functional structure, according to the researchers.
“We had to rethink the way we understand robots,” said Christoph Belk, a postdoctoral researcher in robotics, in the release. “We have shown that polygonal networks are a viable automated strategy.”
Mori3 in action looks a bit like a robotic spider or a zombie dog. Once revived in its intended form, it can move, manipulate and move objects, as well as interact with its users. The robot is designed to fit on spacecraft and perform some basic activities based on its shape, but it is not designed to perform complex tasks.
“Polygonal and polymorphic robots that connect to each other can be used to effectively create articulated structures for a wide variety of applications,” Jamie Pike, director of the Reconfigurable Robotics Lab, said in the release. “Of course, a multi-purpose robot like Mori3 will be less effective than robots that specialize in certain areas.”
She added, “However, Mori3’s biggest selling point is its versatility.”
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