Related papers: The Hidden Wheel-Within
Soft robotic snakes (SRSs) have a unique combination of continuous and compliant properties that allow them to imitate the complex movements of biological snakes. Despite the previous attempts to develop SRSs, many have been limited to…
The study of computing in presence of faulty robots in the Look-Compute-Move model has been the object of extensive investigation, typically with the goal of designing algorithms tolerant to as many faults as possible. In this paper, we…
From microscopic fungi to colossal whales, fluidic ejections are a universal and intricate phenomenon in biology, serving vital functions such as animal excretion, venom spraying, prey hunting, spore dispersal, and plant guttation. This…
Living materials such as membranes, cytoskeletal assemblies, cell collectives and tissues can often be described as active solids -- materials that are energized from within, with elastic response about a well defined reference…
In animals, epithelial tissues are barriers against the external environment, providing protection against biological, chemical, and physical damage. Depending on the animal's physiology and behavior, these tissues encounter different types…
It is shown using numerical simulation that classical charged tachyons have several features normally thought to be unique to quantum mechanics. Spin-like self-orbiting helical motions are shown to exist at discrete values for the velocity…
Traditional models of rational action treat the agent as though it is cleanly separated from its environment, and can act on that environment from the outside. Such agents have a known functional relationship with their environment, can…
Exploiting the "natural" frame of space curves, we formulate an intrinsic dynamics of twisted elastic filaments in viscous fluids. A pair of coupled nonlinear equations describing the temporal evolution of the filament's complex curvature…
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…
Snakes can traverse almost all types of environments by bending their elongate bodies in 3-D to interact with the terrain. Similarly, a snake robot is a promising platform to perform critical tasks in various environments. Understanding how…
In this paper, we make the case that a scientific theory of deep learning is emerging. By this we mean a theory which characterizes important properties and statistics of the training process, hidden representations, final weights, and…
Despite the recent progress in deep learning and reinforcement learning, transfer and generalization of skills learned on specific tasks is very limited compared to human (or animal) intelligence. The lifelong, incremental building of…
The clockwork mechanism is a means of naturally generating exponential hierarchies in theories without significant hierarchies among fundamental parameters. We emphasize the role of interactions in the clockwork mechanism, demonstrating…
A body dissipates energy when it freely rotates about any axis different from principal. This entails relaxation, i.e., decrease of the rotational energy, with the angular momentum preserved. The spin about the major-inertia axis…
It has for ages been a rather constant feature of thinking in science to take it for granted that the respective thinking happens in realms which are totally outside and independent of all the other phenomena that constitute the objects of…
A "circular orbital forcing" makes a chosen point on a rigid body follow a circular motion while the body spins freely around that point. We investigate this problem for the planar motion of a body subject to dry friction. We focus on the…
Different subsystems of organisms adapt over many time scales, such as rapid changes in the nervous system (learning), slower morphological and neurological change over the lifetime of the organism (postnatal development), and change over…
Humanoid robots that can autonomously operate in diverse environments have the potential to help address labour shortages in factories, assist elderly at homes, and colonize new planets. While classical controllers for humanoid robots have…
Humanoids are versatile robotic platforms owing to their limbs with multiple degrees of freedom. Although humanoids can walk like humans, they are relatively slow, and cannot run over large barriers. To address these limitations, we aim to…
In condensed matter systems, the atoms, electrons or spins can sometimes arrange themselves in ways that result in unexpected properties but that cannot be detected by conventional experimental probes. Several historical and contemporary…