Biot Tensegrity Robot
Read here about the work of Aaron Edsinger, Miguel Ferreira, and Naveen Goela in 2002, when they developed methods for building and controlling deformable, tensegrity-based robots.
About Biot, the tensegrity robot
Biot arose out of the Living Machines Project with Prof. Rodney Brooks.
From the website: Biot is a tensegrity robot. Our research with Biot is concerned with the autonomous development of physically embodied robots. We are looking at simple invertebrates such as the leech and the jellyfish to provide models of neural and morphological development. By taking a computational approach to such models, we hope to confirm experimental biological findings and to elucidate the underlying set of tools that nature employs in the development of an organism. Currently, mechanisms of neurogenesis and morphogenesis, along with neural plasticity, are the primary areas of investigation. In addition, we are looking at homeostatic systems and artificial chemistries as components of the developmental program. These models of living systems can provide a framework within which tools such as evolutionary search can find system architectures and morphologies for the robots. The tensegrity robots under construction are to be highly compliant and driven by force-actuation. As such, they can provide rough models for organisms such as the leech and jellyfish.
See also robotics.
Links and References
http://people.csail.mit.edu/edsinger/biot.htm http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/living-machines/projects/nervous-systems.shtml