Reconfigurable robots could make a splash in rescue missions

The robots, developed by a team from Sheffield’s Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (ACSE), can be assembled - and may eventually self-assemble - into arbitrary shapes, allowing them to be customised to meet the changing demands of their task.

Six prototype cubic modules have been assembled with four micro-pumps built into them. They currently float on the surface of water and use their pumps to achieve motion via a process called Modular Hydraulic Propulsion (MHP).

“Rather than using some thrusters that are externally attached to their bodies, the robots move by routing fluid through themselves,” said team leader Dr Roderich Gross. “The fluid can enter and leave the body in a large number of places - the more modules, the more possibilities for the fluid to be routed. This concept could enable underwater robots to move far more precisely than is currently possible.”

The researchers set the robot a task to detect and move towards a light source and it executed the mission with what Gross described as a ‘decentralised brain’.