Called the “SuperBot”, this thing is indeed super. It’s key selling point, as far as I am concerned, is its completely modular design. This design (as you can see from the videos below) allows it to, in essence, build itself into a near limitless array of configurations for various tasks and needs.
Some recent progress:
“Superbot consists of Lego-like but autonomous robotic modules that can reconfigure into different systems for different tasks. Examples of configurable systems include rolling tracks or wheels (for efficient travel), spiders or centipedes (for climbing), snakes (for burrowing in ground), long arms (for inspection and repair in space), and devices that can fly in micro-gravity environment.
“Each module is a complete robotic system and has a power supply, micro- controllers, sensors, communication, three degrees of freedom, and six connecting faces (front, back, left, right, up and down) to dynamically connect to other modules.
It rolls:
More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/uosc-vov022107.php
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