MEXICO: Robots can apparently adapt like animals, new research finds, a trait that could provide tremendous benefits to society such as in search-and-rescue missions and putting out forest fires.
Using incredible instincts, robots can be programmed to automatically recover from damage in less than two minutes. For example, during the study, published in the journal Nature, a six-legged robot managed to keep walking with two broken legs while a robotic arm learned how to correctly place an object even with several broken motors.
Animals are known for their amazing ability to adapt to injury. That’s why there are many three-legged dogs that can catch Frisbees, for instance. Humans also come up with biological strategies for dealing with anything from a sprained ankle to a broken wrist. And until now, the majority of today’s robots couldn’t say they had such animal-like instincts.
“When injured, animals do not start learning from scratch,” senior author Jean-Baptiste Mouret said in a press release. “Instead, they have intuitions about different ways to behave. These intuitions allow them to intelligently select a few, different behaviors to try out and, after these tests, they choose one that works in spite of the injury. We made robots that can do the same.”
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