Not Your Standard Robot

Have you seen birds flocking, or ants forming trails to your picnic table? Swarm behaviors found in nature are the result of thousands of agents following simple rules. We take inspiration from these swarms to engineer nanoparticles that can home in on tumours, and robots that could be used to search a disaster site, or clean-up an oil spill. So what do these systems have in common? They work in huge numbers! We’ll show you what millions of nanoparticles look like under the microscope, and demonstrate more than 100 coin-sized robots.

Although video calls have many benefits over just talking on the phone, they are still lacking compared to talking face to face: we don't feel as connected. A humanoid robot avatar is a possible future communication technology that could address these issues. Our avatar system replicates an operator’s body language and gives them a remote physical presence. How do people interact with someone using a robot avatar? Can we use it to help socially isolated people feel more connected with others? The Being There project is trying to answer these questions.

The future of robotics is soft. Instead of the metallic structures and the deadly precision of a Terminator, we need more robots like the inflatable and soft Baymax from Big Hero 6. Such robots are approachable and they can safely interact with us. Baymax is a machine that we would buy and take home with us.
But soft robots can do more – much more. They are highly resilient, extremely adaptive, and even cheaper to built. They can store and produce energy and, as our research shows, they have intelligent bodies. Soft robots are just like us.