Forget Humanoids. At MIT, Worms and Turtles Are Inspiring a New Generation of Robots
Daniela Rus, the director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, is developing robots that take more cues from nature than science fiction
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Everyone is obsessed with humanoid robots right now, but the director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory thinks tomorrow’s intelligent physical machines could be something radically different.
Think soft and squishy robots, says Daniela Rus. Picture flexible robots, or even edible ones.
Her research group has built a robot out of sausage casing (and a small magnet) that could theoretically be eaten and then perform small-scale non-invasive surgeries, Rus said. Another project is a robotic sea turtle named Crush, designed to help monitor sea life, which uses silicone flippers to maneuver around delicate coral reefs.
Rus was a pioneer of this approach, known as “soft robotics.” Now creative new uses of artificial intelligence are pushing her work to a new level.
“I really wanted to broaden our view of what a robot is,” Rus said. “So if you have a mechanism that’s made out of paper and that moves, is that a robot or not? If you have an origami flower that you attach to a motor, is that a robot or not? To me, it’s a robot.”