An Energetically-Autonomous Robotic Tadpole with Single Membrane Stomach and Tail

We present an energetically autonomous robotic tadpole that uses a single membrane component for both electrical energy generation and propulsive actuation. The coupling of this small bio-inspired power source to a bio-inspired actuator demonstrates the first generation design for an energetically autonomous swimming robot consisting of a single membrane. An ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) with a Nafion polymer layer is demonstrated in a novel application as the ion exchange membrane and anode and cathode electrode of a microbial fuel cell (MFC), whilst being used concurrently as an artificial muscle tail. In contrast to previous work using stacked units for increased voltage, a single MFC with novel, 0.88ml anode chamber architecture is used to generate suitable voltages for driving artificial muscle actuation, with minimal step up. This shows the potential of the small forces generated by IPMCs for propulsion of a bio-energy source. The work demonstrates great potential for reducing the mass and complexity of bio-inspired autonomous robots. The performance of the IPMC as an ion exchange membrane is compared to two conventional ion exchange membranes, Nafion and cation exchange membrane (CEM). The MFC anode and cathode show increased resistance following inclusion within the MFC environment

Toward Energetically Autonomous Foraging Soft Robots

© 2016, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. A significant goal of robotics is to develop autonomous machines, capable of independent and collective operation free from human assistance. To operate with complete autonomy robots must be capable of independent movement and total energy self-sufficiency. We present the design of a soft robotic mouth and artificial stomach for aquatic robots that will allow them to feed on biomatter in their surrounding environment. The robot is powered by electrical energy generated through bacterial respiration within a microbial fuel cell (MFC) stomach, and harvested using state-of-the-art voltage step-up electronics. Through innovative exploitation of compliant, biomimetic actuation, the soft robotic feeding mechanism enables the connection of multiple MFC stomachs in series configuration in an aquatic environment, previously a significant challenge. We investigate how a similar soft robotic feeding mechanism could be driven by electroactive polymer artificial muscles from the same bioenergy supply. This work demonstrates the potential for energetically autonomous soft robotic artificial organisms and sets the stage for radically different future robots

Neural networks predicting microbial fuel cells output for soft robotics applications

The development of biodegradable soft robotics requires an appropriate eco-friendly source of energy. The use of Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) is suggested as they can be designed completely from soft materials with little or no negative effects to the environment. Nonetheless, their responsiveness and functionality is not strictly defined as in other conventional technologies, i.e. lithium batteries. Consequently, the use of artificial intelligence methods in their control techniques is highly recommended. The use of neural networks, namely a nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs was employed to predict the electrical output of an MFC, given its previous outputs and feeding volumes. Thus, predicting MFC outputs as a time series, enables accurate determination of feeding intervals and quantities required for sustenance that can be incorporated in the behavioural repertoire of a soft robot

Toward energy Autonomy in heterogeneous Modular Plant-Inspired Robots through Artificial evolution

Contemporary robots perform energy intensive tasks—e.g., manipulation and locomotion—making the development of energy autonomous robots challenging. Since plants are primary energy producers in natural ecosystems, we took plants as a source of inspiration for designing our robotics platform. This led us to investigate energy autonomy in robots through employing solar panels. As plants move slowly compared to other large terrestrial organisms, it is expected that plant-inspired robots can enable robotic applications, such as long-term monitoring and exploration, where energy consumption could be minimized. Since it is difficult to manually design robotic systems that adhere to full energy autonomy, we utilize evolutionary algorithms to automate the design and evaluation of energy harvesting robots. We demonstrate how artificial evolution can lead to the design and control of a modular plant-like robot. Robotic phenotypes were acquired through implementing an evolutionary algorithm, a generative encoding and modular building blocks in a simulation environment. The generative encoding is based on a context sensitive Lindenmayer-System (L-System) and the evolutionary algorithm is used to optimize compositions of heterogeneous modular building blocks in the simulation environment. Phenotypes that evolved from the simulation environment are in turn transferred to a physical robot platform. The robotics platform consists of five different types of modules: (1) a base module, (2) a cube module, (3) servo modules, and (4,5) two types of solar panel modules that are used to harvest energy. The control system for the platform is initially evolved in the simulation environment and afterward transferred to an actual physical robot. A few experiments were done showing the relationship between energy cost and the amount of light tracking that evolved in the simulation. The reconfigurable modular robots are eventually used to harvest light with the possibility to be reconfigured based on the needs of the designer, the type of usable modules, and/or the optimal configuration derived from the simulation environment. Long-term energy autonomy has not been tested in this robotics platform. However, we think our robotics platform can serve as a stepping stone toward full energy autonomy in modular robots

The Watchmaker's guide to Artificial Life: On the Role of Death, Modularity and Physicality in Evolutionary Robotics

Photograph used for a newspaper owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company

Liquid notations:A common language of transitions

If we lived in a liquid world, the concept of a "machine" would make no sense. Liquid life is metaphor and apparatus that discusses the consequences of thinking, working, and living through liquids. It is an irreducible, paradoxical, parallel, planetary-scale material condition, unevenly distributed spatially, but temporally continuous. It is what remains when logical explanations can no longer account for the experiences that we recognize as part of "being alive."Liquid Life references a third-millennial understanding of matter that seeks to restore the agency of the liquid soul for an ecological era, which has been banished by reductionist, "brute" materialist discourses and mechanical models of life. Offering an alternative worldview of the living realm through a "new materialist" and "liquid" study of matter, Armstrong conjures forth examples of creatures that do not obey mechanistic concepts like predictability, efficiency, and rationality. With the advent of molecular science, an increasingly persuasive ontology of liquid technologies can be identified. Through the lens of lifelike dynamic droplets, the agency for these systems exists at the interfaces between different fields of matter/energy that respond to highly local effects, with no need for a central organizing system.Liquid Life seeks an alternative partnership between humanity and the natural world. It provokes a re-invention of the languages of the living realm to open up alternative spaces for exploration, including contributor Rolf Hughes’ "angelology" of language, which explores the transformative invocations of prose poetry, and Simone Ferracina’s graphical notations that help shape our concepts of metabolism, upcycling, and designing with fluids. A conceptual and practical toolset for thinking and designing, liquid life reunites us with the irreducible "soul substance" of living things, which will neither be simply "solved," nor go away

Everything Flows

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not ontologically made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organized as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilized and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be looked for in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritize processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability—or, more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This multicontributor volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems such as identity, persistence, and individuality