"Technology
has overtaken nature in some domains but lags far
behind in the cognitive processing of received sense impressions. My
dream is to endow robots with multiple sensory modalities. Instead of
always building in more cameras, we should also along the way give them
additional sensors for sound and touch."
Leo van Hemmen,
chair of theoretical biophysics, Technische Universitaet
Muenchen.
Mother Nature’s mechanical and computing techniques are the subject of much admiration among computer researchers. That’s why a team of bio mimicry researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created swimming robotic fish. The robots can swim through water in a school or otherwise maneuver in places where underwater submarines can’t go. By creating machines that mimic biological functions, the researchers hope to produce robots with fluid movements that are far more nimble than today’s machines.
You can almost feel the forces of future evolution at work as you watch this eerie video of bionic penguins created by the German futuristic engineering think tank, Festo. You get the eerie sense that you're watching a 21st Century Doctor Who sequel: their new Bionic Learning Network's autonomous creatures look like an early step down the road leading to decentralized, autonomous, self-controlling and self-organizing systems that just might take over Planet Earth in a few hundred years.
Honed to hunting perfection by millions of years of evolution, there's a lot we can learn from sharks. More than just "Stay out of the water", "Keep the hell away from Amity Island" and how to play the cello. Their skin is a nanostructured surface perfected for their role as nature's flesh-seeking missile, and while human swimmers and boats aren't generally blood-motivated murderizers they can benefit from the same coating.
"Technology
has overtaken nature in some domains but lags far
behind in the cognitive processing of received sense impressions. My
dream is to endow robots with multiple sensory modalities. Instead of
always building in more cameras, we should also along the way give them
additional sensors for sound and touch."
Leo van Hemmen,
chair of theoretical biophysics, Technische Universitaet
Muenchen.
Mother Nature’s mechanical and computing techniques are the subject of much admiration among computer researchers. That’s why a team of bio mimicry researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created swimming robotic fish. The robots can swim through water in a school or otherwise maneuver in places where underwater submarines can’t go. By creating machines that mimic biological functions, the researchers hope to produce robots with fluid movements that are far more nimble than today’s machines.
You can almost feel the forces of future evolution at work as you watch this eerie video of bionic penguins created by the German futuristic engineering think tank, Festo. You get the eerie sense that you're watching a 21st Century Doctor Who sequel: their new Bionic Learning Network's autonomous creatures look like an early step down the road leading to decentralized, autonomous, self-controlling and self-organizing systems that just might take over Planet Earth in a few hundred years.
Honed to hunting perfection by millions of years of evolution, there's a lot we can learn from sharks. More than just "Stay out of the water", "Keep the hell away from Amity Island" and how to play the cello. Their skin is a nanostructured surface perfected for their role as nature's flesh-seeking missile, and while human swimmers and boats aren't generally blood-motivated murderizers they can benefit from the same coating.
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