Project

Seahorse-inspired swiss army knife: versatile robot manipulators that also solve evolutionary problems

Code
BOF/24J/2021/372
Duration
01 October 2021 → 30 September 2025
Funding
Regional and community funding: Special Research Fund
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Machine learning and decision making
    • Animal morphology, anatomy and physiology
    • Phylogeny and comparative analysis
  • Engineering and technology
    • Human-centred and life-like robotics
    • Robot structures
Keywords
Evolutionary morphology seahorses robot control automatization biomimetics
 
Project description

In this project we study the evolutionary adaptive nature of the seahorse tail by means of a robotic manipulator design process. The project relies on the co-learned embodiment and control by means of differentiable programming, starting from the morphology of a seahorse. By developing a parameterised, biomechanical model, this will lead to a versatile robotic manipulator that gives us a platform to test hypotheses on adaptive evolution in biology.