Embracing Complexity for Enduring and Adaptive Robots via Autonomous Materials and Additive Manufacturing

Animals are semi-discretized. Systems of organs that perform multiple functions and are spatially discrete from each other, yet interconnected chemically and electrically. The complexity of animals such as vertebrates allow for adaptation that permits survival within single generations upon significant environmental change. In the search for generally adaptive robots, we believe that the complex, multifunctional, and interconnected organ systems of animals is a model that should be embraced, rather than avoided. Fortuitously, additive manufacturing enables “complexity for free.” Of course, it is not yet that simple to be complex, but we will present additive manufacturing approaches we have used to distribute sensing, actuation, energy, and computation in soft robots. The framework we use for guiding our design evolution is Autonomous Materials, where we push the manufacturing of robots towards forming processes, rather than assembly.