Multifunctional Use of Electrolytic Fluid for Distributed Energy, Hydraulic Actuation, and Data Transport

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 vertebrate mammals allow for adaptation within a single generation that has allowed many examples of species that have thrived without genetic modification even during periods of significant environmental change. In the search for generally adaptive robots, useful for far field exploration missions, we believe that a similar model of complex, multifunctional, and interconnected organ systems of animals should be embraced, rather than avoided. Of course, it is not yet that simple to be complex, but we will present 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, and multifunctional use of material chemistry. The resulting machinery presented will be organic both in chemical makeup and subsystem analogy to organisms.