Biology as blueprint: what animals and cells teach robot designers
Russ Tedrake studies a dead fish that swims and bodies that adapt, Marc Raibert chases natural movement in legged machines, and Neil Gershenfeld takes the ribosome as his model for robots that build robots. Each borrows a different lesson from living things, which shows how much of robotics is reverse-engineering nature.
What do these three robot builders agree biology teaches? Show answer
That the body and its materials are part of the intelligence. Cleverness does not sit only in a central computer.
What lesson does Russ Tedrake take from whole bodies? Show answer
Physics can do much of the work a controller is usually asked to do, so designs should let the body's mechanics help.
How does a passive dynamic walker work? Show answer
Set on a small ramp, it walks on gravity alone. Energy lost at each footfall balances energy gained from the slope into a steady gait.
What does the dead trout experiment show? Show answer
A dead fish tied behind a cylinder in a water tunnel begins swimming upstream. Its body mechanics resonate with the flow without brain or muscle.
What warning does Tedrake attach to learning from animals? Show answer
It is easy to make bad evolutionary arguments. An animal must first avoid being eaten, and only then save energy.
What principle did Marc Raibert keep from biology? Show answer
Animals balance dynamically, predict each step and use springy muscles and tendons to recirculate energy. He built machines to do the same.
What were the three parts of Raibert's hopping control? Show answer
Regulate the bounce by adding or removing energy, choose where to place the foot, and keep the body upright with torque.
In what way is Raibert's engineering not biological? Show answer
His actuators are hydraulic and his control is model-based computation. He copies how animals move, not what they are made of.
Why does Neil Gershenfeld take the ribosome as his model? Show answer
It builds every protein from about 20 amino acids with error correction, and it also builds more ribosomes.
What does Gershenfeld mean by a digital material? Show answer
A discrete set of parts, reversibly joined, whose overall shape is fixed by local constraints, like Lego bricks.
How far is engineering from biology's assembly rate? Show answer
A chip factory places about 10 to the 10th transistors a second. A body places about 10 to the 18th parts a second.
What is the common stance on copying biology? Show answer
Take the principles and existence proofs and leave the anatomy. Each engineers freely where materials and goals differ.