Robot system engineers "taking cues from nature

Citation

(2001), "Robot system engineers "taking cues from nature", Industrial Robot, Vol. 28 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2001.04928aab.002

Robot system engineers "taking cues from nature"

Robot system engineers "taking cues from nature"

Keywords Japan, Immune system, Robots

Robot system engineers are "taking cues from nature" according to the Japanese government-affiliated Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, while a Nagoya University team in Aichi Prefecture, near Nagoya City, central Japan, says it is "taking inspiration from the human immune system to develop a control mechanism that helps a robot to select the most appropriate response when it comes up against a threatening situation".

The Institute confirms that having looked at the insect world, it has designed a type of electronic pheromone that "groups of robots can use to communicate". The University group says its artificial immune network has, in fact, nothing to do with biological immune response but, like biological systems, which protect organisms by treating invading foreign molecules as the enemy and mounting an attack, the robot system identifies the threat and selects the appropriate response.

Typical control systems give a robot patterns to take when avoiding and moving round objects but the artificial immune network also takes into account such factors as a dwindling energy supply and the location of the nearest refueling station. When sensors detect an object, the most appropriate avoidance response is selected from a menu of 18 simple movements but, if fuel levels are very low, a robot will head toward the nearest refueling station by the shortest route possible, even if that requires bumping into obstacles along the way. With regard to the analogy to the immune system, the group refers to each simple movement as an "antibody designed to eliminate the enemy", which in this case is calculated as a "combination of obstacle and fuel level".

The Institute, however, does not stretch matters so far when citing pheromones to describe its robot communication system, but explains that pheromones are "chemicals that insects and animals secrete to convey information to same group members". In place of chemicals and secretory glands, the robots carry several battery-powered devices that combine a central processing unit, a memory chip and an FM radio transmitter. For example, if a robot comes up against a "dangerous obstacle", it will write that information to one of the devices and place it on the ground, so that, when other robots belonging to the group come near the device, they pick up the information and respond accordingly. In one test of the system, two robots traded information that helped them maneuver through a maze without repeating the same mistakes.

The Institute confirms that groups of robots are much harder to control than single devices, and that the complications are compounded as the numbers increase. However, it says that this type of information "turns the problem on its head" and actually makes cooperative endeavors easier as the number of robots increases.