cube robots can self-assemble
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WASHINGTON: Scientists have developed new Terminator-style cube-shaped
robots that can leap through the air, jump on top of each other and
assemble together to form arbitrary shapes. A more refined version of
the robots could temporarily repair bridges or buildings during
emergencies, or assemble into different types of furniture or heavy
equipment as needed, researchers say.
Developed by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the robots, known as M-Blocks , are cubes with no external moving parts. They are able to climb over and around one another, roll across the ground, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces, researchers said. Inside each robot is a flywheel that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute; when the flywheel is braked, it imparts its angular momentum to the cube. On each edge of an M-Block , and on every face, are cleverly arranged permanent magnets that allow any two cubes to attach to each other.
"It's one of these things that the (modular-robotics ) community has been trying to do for a long time," said Daniela Rus, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). "We just needed a creative insight and somebody who was passionate enough to keep coming at it — despite being discouraged," she said.
As with any modular-robot system, the hope is that the modules can be miniaturized— the ultimate aim of most such research is hordes of swarming 'microbots' that can self-assemble , like the "liquid steel" androids in the movie 'Terminator II' . MIT researchers are now building an army of 100 cubes, each of which can move in any direction, and designing algorithms to guide them. "We want hundreds of cubes, scattered randomly across the floor, to be able to identify each other, coalesce, and autonomously transform into a chair, or a ladder, or a desk, on demand ," said John Romanishin of CSAIL.
Developed by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the robots, known as M-Blocks , are cubes with no external moving parts. They are able to climb over and around one another, roll across the ground, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces, researchers said. Inside each robot is a flywheel that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute; when the flywheel is braked, it imparts its angular momentum to the cube. On each edge of an M-Block , and on every face, are cleverly arranged permanent magnets that allow any two cubes to attach to each other.
"It's one of these things that the (modular-robotics ) community has been trying to do for a long time," said Daniela Rus, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). "We just needed a creative insight and somebody who was passionate enough to keep coming at it — despite being discouraged," she said.
As with any modular-robot system, the hope is that the modules can be miniaturized— the ultimate aim of most such research is hordes of swarming 'microbots' that can self-assemble , like the "liquid steel" androids in the movie 'Terminator II' . MIT researchers are now building an army of 100 cubes, each of which can move in any direction, and designing algorithms to guide them. "We want hundreds of cubes, scattered randomly across the floor, to be able to identify each other, coalesce, and autonomously transform into a chair, or a ladder, or a desk, on demand ," said John Romanishin of CSAIL.
ctuations that appear as dark spots on the solar surface — are highest
in number. "When the number of sunspots is highest, a time known as the
solar maximum, the sun's large-scale dipole magnetic field starts
reversing. This reversal is akin to sun's magnetic poles flipping. It's
almost as if a giant magnet inside the sun was turned upside down," said
Dibyendu Nandi, an a strop hysicist at Kolkata's Indian Institute of
Science Education and Research.