If I asked you to close your eyes and think about a robot,
maybe you envision something like this.
Maybe we want to think about robotics from a different perspective.
Robotics as a field really started in
industrial settings where very precise and fast motion was needed.
Those same technologies are not really suitable for interacting with people.
When we think of biorobotics,
we really think of something that's more like
the field of AI, of artificial intelligence.
Thinking about that combination of both the body and the brain and the group.
There's just a lot of examples in biology,
where we can see how that can be
achieved and how we can leverage the same kinds of ideas.
I think of biorobotics is a new discipline connecting living creatures and robots.
Just took a look at nature and see how nature does things.
Looking at design principles in nature and trying to build
robots that either implement those principles or interact with those principles.
Looking at humans, looking at biomechanics,
looking at the materials that exist in nature,
looking at the algorithms that nature uses.
What is intelligence?
What is the technology that's going to make us be
able to understand what biology already has?
Hopefully, it's not just inspiration that actually bio in
form that we take what we learn from
animals and use it in applying those techniques to robots.
Almost all locomoting robots and many of the manipulator robots
are inspired by these soft animals that we are familiar with.
If we wanted to make robots that would act in some way like this, how would we do this?
So, compared to more traditional robots,
things that are welding the doors on your car and assembly lines,
we're making robots which are inherently safer to interact with.
Because they're soft or they're small and because of their size or because of
their compliance and an ability to adapt to sort of natural environments.
Can perform tasks that are difficult or impossible with other classes of robots.
Take for example, the ROBO-BEEs project,
which is the goal of creating a colony of autonomous robotic insects.
There's nothing off the shelf which is going to be used for any of the components.
Since, we have to reinvent every feature of this robot.
Along the way have new technologies that are developed as part of them.
Many of the people in our field are inspired
by the incredible ability of biological systems to cooperate.
If we think of swarms in nature or let's say you think of termites that build
mounds or you think of ant colonies that can forge over large regions.
Imagine being able to create robotic systems that could do those stuffs.
So, could I make robots to built?
Could I make robots that could go through
a coral reef and monitors the health of a system?
If you think about traffic and self-driving cars,
as soon as you have a lane full of self-driving cars,
you have a lot of robots on the road.
So, if we can build an algorithmic understanding,
how you have large scalable collectives work together in a decentralized way?
They're going to be slightly faulty and they're going to have low capabilities.
As opposed to the absolute perfect robot,
that can perfectly navigate through some complex environment.
That's a really amazing manufacturing technology
because you could mass manufacturer simple things.
Then those simple things would cooperate and
create something of a much higher complexity.
What we are aiming at in robotics is really this concept
that where humans and robots can co-exist?
Can coordinate?
Can distribute tasks to the joint benefit of all?
As you know, there's a many big differences between
the driving mechanism of current robot and the human body.
So, we're working on software for robots to
both enhance and augment the ability of healthy individuals.
Then we're trying to apply the same technology
to people who have some kind of physical disability.
You start thinking people have designed wearable robotics.
They've tried to think when headroom gives him superhuman strength.
What we believe is that there's a lot of people with some kind of disability.
They don't need superhuman strength,
but just need a small amount of assistance.
But that's small amounts of assistance kind of have
a pretty big impact in their quality of life.
So, we're trying to take a new approach and say,
"How do we design new robotic components
that are using soft materials to be able to apply
forces to a person and what the mass and the
kinematic restrictions associated with rigid devices?".
There's a potential to like really helped people who have severe injuries.
It's taking in an unconventional approach.
You're not saying, how do we improve in the status quo.
It's saying," Hey, we basically take a fundamental leap."
We can push all of these different fronts.
But somewhere behind it,
there are core ideas that we can share.
Like how do you produce autonomy?
What are the sensing technologies that they work?
Can we make softer robots?
What we're trying to do is make robots smaller, softer, safer.
The line between person and robot get blurred even
more where people are interacting with robots and ways that they never imagined.
These are ways that will have profound impacts on
our lives in the future and robotics will be the first one to that.
