Robot, heal thyself: scientists develop self-repairing machines
But being gentle and soft enough to avoid damaging fruit or flesh has made the robots prone to damage and left them largely impractical for use in the real world – until now.
A European commission-funded project, led by scientists at the Free University of Brussels and the University of Cambridge, aims to create “self-healing” robots that can feel pain, or sense damage, before swiftly patching themselves up without human intervention.
The researchers have already successfully developed polymers that can heal themselves by creating new bonds after about 40 minutes.
The next step will be to embed sensor fibres in the polymer which can detect where the damage is located.
“With this research we want to continue and, above all, ensure that robots that are used in our working environment are safer, but also more sustainable. Due to the self-repair mechanism of this new kind of robots, complex, costly repairs may be a thing of the past.”