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Key to our project flora robotica is the idea of creating a bio-hybrid system of tightly coupled natural plants and distributed robots to grow architectural artifacts and spaces. Our motivation with this ground research project is to lay a…
Equipping robotic systems with the capacity to generate $\textit{ex novo}$ hardware during operation extends control of physical adaptability. Unlike modular systems that rely on discrete component integration pre- or post-deployment, we…
Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing…
Organisms result from adaptive processes interacting across different time scales. One such interaction is that between development and evolution. Models have shown that development sweeps over several traits in a single agent, sometimes…
The design of intelligent materials often draws parallels with the complex adaptive behaviors of biological organisms, where robust functionality stems from sophisticated hierarchical organization and emergent long-distance coordination…
Evolution sculpts both the body plans and nervous systems of agents together over time. In contrast, in AI and robotics, a robot's body plan is usually designed by hand, and control policies are then optimized for that fixed design. The…
Microelectronic morphogenesis is the creation and maintenance of complex functional structures by microelectronic information within shape-changing materials. Only recently has in-built information technology begun to be used to reshape…
Plant morphogenesis relies on dynamic growth deformations at the cell and tissue scales driven by osmotic fluxes. A mechanistic understanding of this phenomenon demands a physical framework that integrates cell imbibition, tissue mechanics,…
A remarkable property of nastic, shape changing plants is their complete fusion between actuators and structure. This is achieved by combining a large number of cells whose geometry, internal pressures and material properties are optimized…
Understanding how living organisms spontaneously develop complex functional structures inspires innovative approaches in engineering design. Here, we introduce a decentralized generative model based on morphogenesis to autonomously grow…
Humanoid robots, as general-purpose physical agents, must integrate both intelligent control and adaptive morphology to operate effectively in diverse real-world environments. While recent research has focused primarily on optimizing…
Natural slender structures, such as plant leaves, petals, and tendrils, often exhibit complex three-dimensional (3D) morphologies-including twisting, helical coiling, and saddle-bending-driven by differential growth. The resulting internal…
Modeling the spontaneous evolution of morphology in natural systems and its preservation by proportionate growth remains a major scientific challenge. Yet, it is conceivable that if the basic mechanisms of growth and the coupled kinetic…
In nature, biological organisms jointly evolve both their morphology and their neurological capabilities to improve their chances for survival. Consequently, task information is encoded in both their brains and their bodies. In robotics,…
Deployable structures, essential across various engineering applications ranging from umbrellas to satellites, are evolving to include soft, morphable designs where geometry drives transformation. However, a major challenge for soft…
Complex systems have motivated continuing interest from the scientific community, leading to new concepts and methods. Growing systems represent a case of particular interest, as their topological, geometrical, and also dynamical properties…
This paper presents a real-time simulation involving ''protozoan-like'' cells that evolve by natural selection in a physical 2D ecosystem. Selection pressure is exerted via the requirements to collect mass and energy from the surroundings…
The evolutionary balance between innate and learned behaviors is highly intricate, and different organisms have found different solutions to this problem. We hypothesize that the emergence and exact form of learning behaviors is naturally…
Contemporary sensorimotor learning approaches typically start with an existing complex agent (e.g., a robotic arm), which they learn to control. In contrast, this paper investigates a modular co-evolution strategy: a collection of primitive…
Natural organisms utilize distributed actuation through their musculoskeletal systems to adapt their gait for traversing diverse terrains or to morph their bodies for varied tasks. A longstanding challenge in robotics is to emulate this…