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Saturday, January 22, 2011

New evolving robots crawl before learning to walk

Roboticists are applying the way we learn to walk as humans to robots, hoping to improve their movement and behaviours by enabling them to change their form as they learn to move.

Photo: The Next Web
Just as babies learn to crawl before they walk, a new line of robots at the University of Vermont are able to walk by learning from successful movements. This happens because their unique design makes it possible for them to change form as they learn to walk. In the study, the robots wear a brace that gradually tilts their body and bends the legs, while the robot’s controller searches for successful movements. The robots begin in a crawl-like state and squirm around like a lizard on floor until they can figure out how to properly walk.

Josh Bongard, leading the study on these evolving robots, is a roboticist at the University of Vermont. He released his discoveries earlier this month to the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Read more...

Related link
Bongard mentioned on a recent science podcast.

Watch an overview video of Bongard's robot simulations.



Source: The Next Web