Self-Healing Robot

When people or animals get hurt, they will usually compensate for minor injuries and keep limping along, except for robots, even slight damage can make them stumble and fall. Now a robot scarcely larger than a person’s hand has demonstrated a novel ability: It can recover from damage — an innovation that could make robots more independent. The new robot, which seems like a splay-legged, four-footed starfish, deduces the form of its own body by performing a series of playful movements, swiveling its four limbs. By using sensors to record resulting changes within the angle of its body, it gradually generates a computerized image of itself. The robot then uses this to plan out the way to walk forward. The researchers hope similar robots will someday respond not only to wreck to their own bodies but also to changes in the surrounding environment. Such responsiveness could lend autonomy to robotic explorers on other planets like Mars — a helpful feature, since such robots can’t always be in touch with human controllers on earth. apart from practical value, the robot’s abilities suggest a similarity to human thinking because the robot tries out various actions to figure out the shape of its world.