These Self-Configuring Modular Robots May One Day Rule the World

Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon: Forbidden West: both really great games, no? In entirely unrelated news, we were fascinated to read a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on what the authors are calling “reconfigurable modular robots.” As the name suggests, these robots are composed of multiple parts that can be configured in several ways, allowing the robots to adapt to their surroundings and the demands of whatever task they’re trying to perform. In the study, the authors explain that this modular system could allow for “the automatic design and rapid assembly of novel agile robots” in “a wide diversity of novel legged forms.” The study explains that the motivation for the system was removing human preconceptions and instead allowing robots to “evolve” on their own by configuring themselves into shapes and designs that best fit their environment. To this effect, they created simple but self-contained parts that they call “autonomous modular legs.” Each leg is a simple combination of shapes, two protruding cylinders joined to a central sphere, and is equipped with its own power supply, sensors, processors, and actuators. This means that eve