The Morphological Computation group is focused on exploiting morphological features to design and build intelligent bodies to obtain better performing robots. The work is inspired by observations in nature that suggest that biological systems are relying heavily on their body morphologies (materials, dynamic properties) to drastically improve sensing, controlling and learning. We use soft robotic technologies, smart materials, protocell chemistry, and biological tissue to implement beneficial functionalities directly in the body morphology of the robot. The results are intelligent machines that are more energy efficient, remarkably robust, resilient and adaptive, and that can learn faster – all properties that are needed for robotic systems that should work autonomously under real-world conditions. The group's work includes the exploitation of octopus arms for computing, innovative sensory skins for prosthetics, accelerated learning through physically growing robots, spider-web inspired vibration sensors, intelligent structures constructed out of biological cells, and many others.
Morphological Computation
building smart bodies for smart robots