Virtual Nervous Systems for Self-Assembling Robots - A preliminary report

TL;DR

This paper introduces autonomous robots with a virtual nervous system (VNS) that enables dynamic merging, splitting, and self-healing capabilities, surpassing existing robotic and biological systems in flexibility and resilience.

Contribution

It presents the concept and implementation of VNS in robots, allowing for physical merging, splitting, and self-healing, which is a novel approach in robotic control systems.

Findings

Robots can merge into a single system with one brain.

Robots can split into independent units with separate brains.

Robots can self-heal by replacing malfunctioning parts.

Abstract

We define the nervous system of a robot as the processing unit responsible for controlling the robot body, together with the links between the processing unit and the sensorimotor hardware of the robot - i.e., the equivalent of the central nervous system in biological organisms. We present autonomous robots that can merge their nervous systems when they physically connect to each other, creating a "virtual nervous system" (VNS). We show that robots with a VNS have capabilities beyond those found in any existing robotic system or biological organism: they can merge into larger bodies with a single brain (i.e., processing unit), split into separate bodies with independent brains, and temporarily acquire sensing and actuating capabilities of specialized peer robots. VNS-based robots can also self-heal by removing or replacing malfunctioning body parts, including the brain.