Develop a sea star robot to overcome the sudden damage

According to the Science Daily, Japanese scientists have for the first time succeeded in creating a robot that can adapt rapidly to sudden damage to the body. This technology will be very useful for machines operating in hazardous conditions.

Marine starfish, capable of responding to sudden damage within seconds - (Photo: Ishiguro-Kano Laboratory).

Typically, the robot takes a considerable amount of time (several dozen seconds) to reorganize after an unexpected physical damage. Researchers at Tohoku University and Hokkaido University have decided to teach intelligent machines how to adapt quickly. To understand how this idea could be implemented, they noted that Brittle Star is one of the invertebrates and often hides in coral reefs during the day. This starfish has five soft branches, but does not have a complex central nervous system. They can continue to move even after losing one of the branches and coordinating the remaining branches accordingly.

In experiments, scientists in various ways cut off the branches of Brittle Star and then tracked its behavior. As a result, scientists have been able to develop a simple decentralized control mechanism for robots , where each arm rests on the surface only when it senses a response. This mechanism is implemented in a starfish robot , which is capable of responding to sudden damage within seconds. Researchers hope that their findings will help develop reliable computers that will operate in adverse conditions, such as disaster areas.

It is known that the designer robots are often inspired by nature. For example, recently, one has been developed, similar to real muscle, but is capable of lifting a load 1000 times its own weight.