{"id":22459,"date":"2017-10-19T10:54:36","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T14:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=22459"},"modified":"2019-03-12T12:13:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T16:13:10","slug":"transformers-mit-multitasking-robot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/transformers-mit-multitasking-robot\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing \u2018Transformers\u2019 to Life: MIT\u2019s New Multitasking Robot Changes Outfits to Suit Tasks"},"content":{"rendered":"
Image – Courtesy of the MIT Researchers<\/em><\/h6>\n

Researchers from MIT\u2019s <\/span>Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) <\/span>have created a robot capable of altering its appearance and abilities by changing exoskeletons. This design is a departure from traditional thinking in robotics, in which robots are built to perform one task or suit one particular purpose. This robot, known as \u201cPrimer,\u201d has the ability to adopt the form best suited to a given task.<\/span><\/p>\n

The paper is published in <\/span>Science Robotics<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The project was led by <\/span>Daniela Rus<\/span><\/a>, t<\/span>he Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of CSAIL, <\/span>and <\/span>Shuhei Miyashita<\/span><\/a>, a former CSAIL postdoctoral research associate who is now a <\/span>lecturer in intelligent robotics at the University of York in the UK<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRobots – and especially rigid-bodied robots, like the kinds you see in movies – are generally pretty inflexible, since most of the time each of their parts has a fixed structure and a single defined purpose,\u201d said Miyashita. \u201cThis means that they can\u2019t easily be developed to achieve different types of tasks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The research team saw this inflexibility as a hindrance to the field of robotics and sought to change it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to develop a basic robot body with fine-tuned \u2018super-suits\u2019 (exoskeletons) that it can pick up and drop off for different tasks,\u201d Miyashita said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having one robot that can perform a number of functions is vastly more efficient than building multiple robots, each performing just one function. <\/span><\/p>\n

Without any exoskeletons, Primer has the appearance of a gold sugar cube. By donning its various exoskeletons, it can walk, roll, sail, and glide. Its movement is controlled via magnets, and its exoskeletons come in the form of sheets of plastic which, when heated, fold up around Primer. Once the task is accomplished, Primer sheds it exoskeleton by immersing itself in water.<\/span><\/p>\n