Evolved and Designed Self-Reproducing Modular Robotics

Abstract

Long-term physical survivability of most robotic systems today is achieved through durable hardware. In contrast, most biological systems are not made of robust materials; long-term sustainability and evolutionary adaptation in nature are provided through processes of self-repair and, ultimately, self-reproduction. Here we demonstrate a large space of possible robots capable of autonomous self-reproduction. These robots are composed of actuated modules equipped with electromagnets to selectively control the morphology of the robotic assembly. We show a variety of 2-D and 3-D machines from 3 to 2n modules, and two physical implementations that each achieves two generations of reproduction. We show both automatically generated and manually designed morphologies