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May 12, 2005

Believe It Or Not

I've been hearing about the possibility of self-replicating robots now for nearly twenty years, since I first read K. Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation, exploring the idea of nanotechnology using minute self-replicating bots. Since then Drexler's idea has taken a lot of stick, as a lot of scientific folk have poured scorn on the idea.

All the same, boffins everywhere have been having a go at this idea, and it looks like some guys at Cornell University in New York have made the first breakthrough. We're a long way from Drexler's atomic ssemblers, of course, but this does seem like a promising start.

LONDON (Reuters) - Self-replicating robots are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

Scientists at the Cornell University in Ithaca, New York have created small robots that can build copies of themselves.

Each robot consists of several 10-cm (4 inch) cubes which have identical machinery, electromagnets to attach and detach to each other and a computer program for replication. The robots can bend and pick up and stack the cubes.

"Although the machines we have created are still simple compared with biological self-reproduction, they demonstrate that mechanical self-reproduction is possible and not unique to biology," Hod Lipson said in a report in the science journal Nature on Wednesday.

He and his team believe the design principle could be used to make long term, self-repairing robots that could mend themselves and be used in hazardous situations and on space flights.

The experimental robots, which don't do anything else except make copies of themselves, are powered through contacts on the surface of the table and transfer data through their faces. They self-replicate by using additional modules placed in special "feeding locations."

The machines duplicate themselves by bending over and putting their top cube on the table. Then they bend again, pick up another cube, put it on top of the first and repeat the entire process. As the new robot begins to take shape it helps to build itself.

"The four-module robot was able to construct a replica in 2.5 minutes by lifting and assembling cubes from the feeding locations," said Lipson.

UPDATE Later: Alert reader DShan draws my attention to this page at New Scientist, which features more detail, and a gasp-worthy video.

Posted by adrian at May 12, 2005 01:02 PM

Comments

Have a look at the New Scientist article on the subject, and in particular the video of one of these robots in action. It's fascinating, enchanting, riveting:

www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624997.100

Posted by: dshan [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 12, 2005 06:45 PM

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