Foambot Like most machines, Robots are generally built toward a purpose or a set of narrowly defined applications, like automobile manufacturing or explosive ordnance disposal or making doner kebabs. So how do you make a robot that is truly multi-utility, adaptable to any job? You make a robot that can make itself.
Enter Foambot, a University of Pennsylvania creation that constructs itself on the spot depending on what kind of robot is needed at the time. Foambot consists of a mobile “mothership” platform and several joint modules that can create powered kinetic motion. Programmed for a task, the mothership can configure the joints on the ground and spray them with a mixture of chemical reagents that harden and expand into a solid urethane foam.
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Could Robots Unite Under One Operating System?TagsTechnology, Clay Dillow, foam, foambot, robotics, robots, university of pennsylvaniaOnce connected by the hardened foam, the joints are coordinated by a piece of software that analyses the way the mothership has connected them and creates a motion scheme on the fly. And like that, you have a robot. Kind of like Voltron, but without the defender-of-the-universe mission profile.
The concept is pretty rudimentary for now, but it’s not hard to envision such a make-it-as-you-go platform being refined into a very useful concept, particularly for situations where humans know they might need a robot but don’t know what kind of robot they might need (say for humanitarian missions or for future space exploration, for instance). The Navy is already exploring this idea to some degree via 3-D printing. As you can see in the video below, this kind of concept is still taking form. Now we just have to wait for it to solidify.
[New Scientist]
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Q 10/19/11 at 3:43 pm Here! Here! For wishful thinking in robot self manufactoring. I like to see the results of this a few years in the future.
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dorin 10/19/11 at 4:10 pm its sertenly a good start but we have a long ways to go
Link to this comment beantown179 10/19/11 at 8:24 pmLove the concept but doesn't really make sense to build something out of foam. If coupled though with the new material maker that uses DNA as its building blocks then we could literally have a machine build something that ordinarily would not exist in nature solve a problem remotely. Replace "foam" for another medium and instead focus on the AI - and now you have some serious advancements.
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qksilver 10/20/11 at 3:28 pm One obedient girlfriend coming up!
Link to this comment prime2011 10/20/11 at 6:52 pmNice idea and good start. Once they get to more exact precision with the limb creation etc then it should be quite versatile. Perhaps some sort of mobile 3d printer would be a good choice as well?
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