It is prevalent in contemporary AI and robotics to separately postulate a brain modeled by neural networks and employ it to learn intelligent and adaptive behavior. While this method has worked very well for many types of tasks, it isn't the only type of intelligence that exists in nature. In this work, we study the ways in which intelligent behavior can be created without a separate and explicit brain for robot control, but rather solely as a result of the computation occurring within the physical body of a robot. Specifically, we show that adaptive and complex behavior can be created in voxel-based virtual soft robots by using simple reactive materials that actively change the shape of the robot, and thus its behavior, under different environmental cues. We demonstrate a proof of concept for the idea of closed-loop morphological computation, and show that in our implementation, it enables behavior mimicking logic gates, enabling us to demonstrate how such behaviors may be combined to build up more complex collective behaviors.
Three-dimensional Morphological Reconstruction of Millimeter-Scale Soft Continuum Robots based on Dual-Stereo-Vision
Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；CUHK Shenzhen Research Institute（香港中文大学（深圳）研究院）；The Chinese University of Hong Kong（香港中文大学）；College of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Hunan University（湖南大学计算机与电子工程学院）
Generative Evolutionary Design of Voxel-Based Soft Robots with Provable Optimality
Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；Shanghai Innovation Institute（上海创新研究院）；Renmin University of China（中国人民大学）；Intelligent Game and Decision Laboratory（智能博弈与决策实验室）
Shaping the Evolutionary Dynamics of Robot Morphology via Adaptive Control Learning
Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；Intelligent Game and Decision Laboratory（智能游戏与决策实验室）；Renmin University of China（中国人民大学）；Shanghai Innovation Institute（上海创新研究院）
Evolving soft locomotion in aquatic and terrestrial environments: effects of material properties and environmental transitions
Morphology, Evolution & Cognition Lab, University of Vermont（佛蒙特大学形态、进化与认知实验室）；Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University（康奈尔大学生物统计与计算生物学系）；Fluid Structure Interaction Research Group, Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute, University of Southampton（南安普顿大学南安普顿海洋与海事研究所流体结构相互作用研究组）
VSL-Skin: Individually Addressable Phase-Change Voxel Skin for Variable-Stiffness and Virtual Joints Bridging Soft and Rigid Robots
School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University（机械工程学院，普渡大学）；Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Purdue University（农业与生物工程系，普渡大学）；School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University（航空与航天学院，普渡大学）
Literary Emotions in Motion: A Soft Robotics Installation for Tactile Storytelling
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Chile（智利大学机械工程系）；Independent Researcher（独立研究员）；Bolivian Catholic University（玻利维亚天主大学）；Institute of Engineering Sciences, University of O’Higgins（奥希金斯大学工程科学研究所）
Octopuses: biological facts and technical solutions
IHP – Leibniz-Institut für innovative Mikroelektronik（IHP – 莱布尼茨创新微电子研究所）；BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg（科特布斯-森夫滕贝格勃兰登堡工业大学）；Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST)（冲绳科学技术大学院大学）
Social Learning Strategies for Evolved Virtual Soft Robots
Department of Informatics, University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学信息学院）；University Toulouse Capitole, IRIT - CNRS UMR5505（图卢兹卡普利大学）；University of Trieste（特里埃斯特大学）；RITMO, University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学RITMO）
Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology（长滨生物科学与技术学院）；Network System Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology（国立信息与通信技术研究所网络系统研究部）；Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University（名古屋大学信息学研究科）；Interdisciplinary Graduate School, University of Yamanashi（山梨大学跨学科研究科）
Measuring information transfer in a soft robotic arm
The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University（京都大学白眉高级研究中心）；Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University（京都大学信息学研究生院）；Department of Informatics, University of Zurich（苏黎世大学信息学系）
Reinforcement learning in linear embedding space unlocks generalizable control across soft robot configurations
National University of Defense Technology（国防科技大学）；Hefei University of Technology（合肥工业大学）；Nanjing University (Suzhou Campus)（南京大学（苏州校区））；Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学）；Beihang University（北京航空航天大学）；Newcastle University（纽卡斯尔大学）
SLUGBOT, an Aplysia-inspired Robotic Grasper for Studying Control
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine（麦高恩再生医学研究所）；Robotics Institute（机器人研究所）；Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学）；Case Western Reserve University（凯斯西储大学）
Trade-Offs in Exploiting Body Morphology for Control: from Simple Bodies and Model-Based Control to Complex Bodies with Model-Free Distributed Control Schemes
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia（意大利技术研究院）；Anatolia College/ACT（安纳托利亚学院/美国学院塞萨洛尼基分校）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）
