A military reconnaissance robot being developed at a British lab can moving even if it gets damaged on the battlefield. When any of the snake-like robot's "muscle" segments are damaged, clever software "evolves" a different way for it to wriggle any terrain.
The serpentine spy is a research project by aerospace company BAE Systems to make a low-cost military robot that can dropped out of helicopters to carry reconnaissance missions. Because it is not , the low-profile, ground-hugging snakebot should make a versatile battlefield spy. The team it has also developed a shape-changing antenna that high-quality video and audio.
A self-healing robot has long been a dream of robotics engineers, not because the machines are notoriously unreliable and absolutely terrible at dealing with circumstances.
"When a dog loses a leg it's got a clever enough brain to allow it to adapt," says computer scientist Peter Bentley at University College London. But robots still this adaptive ability.