Virtual Nervous Systems for Self-Assembling Robots - A preliminary report
This addresses the challenge of creating adaptable, self-assembling robotic systems for applications in dynamic environments, though it appears to be a preliminary report with incremental advancements in modular robotics.
The paper tackles the problem of enabling autonomous robots to merge their nervous systems upon physical connection, creating a virtual nervous system (VNS) that allows them to form larger bodies with a single brain, split into separate bodies, and temporarily acquire capabilities from peers, with demonstrated capabilities beyond existing systems.
We define the nervous system of a robot as the processing unit responsible for controlling the robot body, together with the links between the processing unit and the sensorimotor hardware of the robot - i.e., the equivalent of the central nervous system in biological organisms. We present autonomous robots that can merge their nervous systems when they physically connect to each other, creating a "virtual nervous system" (VNS). We show that robots with a VNS have capabilities beyond those found in any existing robotic system or biological organism: they can merge into larger bodies with a single brain (i.e., processing unit), split into separate bodies with independent brains, and temporarily acquire sensing and actuating capabilities of specialized peer robots. VNS-based robots can also self-heal by removing or replacing malfunctioning body parts, including the brain.