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Morphological Computation: The Hidden Superpower of Soft-Bodied Robots

Posted by samzenpus on from the going-soft dept.

Hallie Siegel writes: Ever wonder why most robots are built with hard bodies? It's because they are easier to control that way. But now researchers are embracing the complexities of soft bodies, by using their complex dynamics as an asset for solving some of the control computation, instead of using digital computation to solve it. Not surprisingly, many soft robots are inspired by nature. Researcher Helmut Hauser talks about his research in 'morphological computation', including OCTOPUS, a bio-inspired robotic silicon arm.

51 comments

  1. First Tentacle! by MenThal · · Score: 5, Funny

    We all know where this is heading...

    1. Re:First Tentacle! by wasteoid · · Score: 1

      Cleverly sneaking a tentacle into a tight space.

    2. Re:First Tentacle! by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      We sure do! Anyone else is thirsty?

    3. Re:First Tentacle! by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      This might be a better link.

  2. pwm and motor loading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Pulse width modulation (a train of short binary pulses that mimic an analog waveform) commonly rely upon the motors winding loading effect to "smooth" out the pulse-train and make a wave out of it. has this loading effect been quantified? (a speaker is also a sort of motor, and low-end electronics often use a pwm driving a small speaker instead of an amplified dac...) also a resister-ladder serves as a low-pass filter in lieu of a motor.
    are these type of effects utilized at all?

    1. Re: pwm and motor loading by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 2

      What the heck has this got to do with the article? The article is not concerned with the piss easy to model motor driven by "pulse width modulation" or anything so mundane. See that picture at the top? That is a balloon picking up a cup. A balloon. Model that with your little PID controller. This is talking about replacing all your silly actuators with their low degrees of freedom, and their pitiful centralised digital feedback controller, with a batshit insane pile networked springs (from a modelling view). The exact dynamics of your motor response look a little irrelevant in context.

    2. Re: pwm and motor loading by rus.tech.studio · · Score: 1

      Yes these effects are well known and relatively commonplace in the world of system dynamics.

  3. I want a soft bodied by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I want a soft bodied Fembot.... complete with all parts

    1. Re:I want a soft bodied by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want a soft bodied Fembot.... complete with all parts

      I want a firm bodied man-bot, with one hard part

    2. Re:I want a soft bodied by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      Don't date robots!

  4. Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This article is fascinating and also a bit surprising. Surprising that the engineering world is still trying to hang onto simplified digital linear control. The real world is non-linear and analog! Linear control makes things simple mathematically and deterministic, but it also extremely limiting. There is a reason that the natural world works in a fundamentally non-linear analog fashion, and that is because it's better. Want to know why mobile phones aren't the size of bricks anymore? It's because Chris Toumazou replaced all that clunky digital radio with vastly smaller more efficient analog circuits. It's also why deaf kids can get a fully embedded cochlea implant and not have to carry around a car battery. Digital is so last century people, it's time to embrace the analog renaissance!

    1. Re:Non-linear control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Want to know why mobile phones aren't the size of bricks anymore?

      But, they are the size of bricks.

    2. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Well yes, but to be fair they are very thin bricks now.

    3. Re:Non-linear control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, what?

      "digital linear"

      Um, what?

      "The real world is non-linear"

      Um, what?

      " replaced all that clunky digital radio with vastly smaller more efficient analog circuits"

      Um, what?

    4. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Shhh, shhh, go back to sleep now...

    5. Re:Non-linear control by delt0r · · Score: 2

      Err no. Just because its digital does not make it linear or anything else. We use digital because it just works better, and is cheaper and is less susceptible to noise. Just because it is digital does not mean it has to be a power hungry i7 or something.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    6. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Where did I suggest that linear control and digital control were one and the same? Digital has a range of benefits, but "power consumption" ain't one of em. You take a transistor which follows a beautiful exponential curve like much of the real world (especially biology) and crush all of that information into a 1 and a 0. We are not talking small power improvements by modelling these things in analog, we are talking several orders of magnitude improvements. And it's not just power consumption, how about response time? Digital makes it easy to change my algorithms but the fastest processor in the world is still infinitely slow compared to the instant feedback available in the analog world. Seriously, look up this Chris bloke, it'll change your life.

    7. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Also, cheaper? Cheaper to change, yes, but tell me again how a million transistors to do something an analog circuit can achieve with a handful is cheaper again?

    8. Re:Non-linear control by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Want to know why mobile phones aren't the size of bricks anymore? It's because Chris Toumazou replaced all that clunky digital radio with vastly smaller more efficient analog circuits.

      I'm not really sure where you're getting this. The old, large cell phones were analog phones. In DSP the goal is to get to digital as quickly as reasonable, because once the signal is digital, you no longer lose data.

      It seems like you read something interesting, I'm not sure what because you didn't link to it. You can't just generalize that analog is better in all situations though.........sometimes it's necessary for interfacing with nature: that's the only real advantage of analog.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Chris Toumazou, say it with me. Read the article. It is all about replacing umpteen different actuators and sensors and ludicrously complex control feedback with some springs and soft bits whose dynamic properties achieve the same function. Analog (mechanical). That's what "puppy"' is, extremely simple from the traditional control side of things, but the dynamic properties of the the materials mean that it affects a quadruped gate. All the tricky stuff is simply a by product of the material composition. How is that not awesome? Here we are using the analog properties of "soft materials" (with or without feedback) to perform the extraordinarily complex control of these robots. Analog man, it's awesome sauce.

    10. Re:Non-linear control by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Chris Toumazou, say it with me. Read the article.

      You haven't linked to an article, man. His Wikipedia article isn't giving much.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    11. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      No I meant the article at the top of this page. It's all interrelated stuff, but the article here is all about soft robots (using the natural properties of the materials to perform complex control function), while Chris is all about analog electronics. Chris has several YouTube videos that are well worth a watch, and tons of published papers that are worth a read if you have access to the academic web.

    12. Re:Non-linear control by khallow · · Score: 1

      An obvious rebuttal to the superiority of analog is the study of differential equations. Every classical analog circuit of finite extent (not counting effects of relativity or QM) can be expressed in terms of polynomial differential equations of one variable (polynomial in the function(s) and the variable). There are several observations to make at this point. First, linearized, digital numerical methods (eg, finite difference or finite elements methods) are vastly faster and more accurate even in the situations where one tries to come up with models which break the linearization (chaos, singularities, etc) because the analog models are even more fragile (due to the noise inherent in an analog system and propagation delays) and only operate in real time.

      Second, the solutions to polynomial differential equations form a small, though very important subset of a much larger space of smooth nonlinear functions for which the digital methods are vastly superior. Namely, digital methods don't lose effectiveness while you no longer have any claim to an exact solution (plus noise) for an analog model with finite number of elements.

      And that's not even considering the flexibility of digital approaches which allow you to automatically and quickly apply the method when you are given a differential equation to solve/model. You have to construct the analog system in order to get it to work the same way.

    13. Re:Non-linear control by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      YouTube videos that are well worth a watch, and tons of published papers that are worth a read if you have access to the academic web.

      It might be helpful for you to watch them again, that way you can more clearly describe what you are trying to say. Watching it a second time will improve your explaining ability.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    14. Re:Non-linear control by khellendros1984 · · Score: 1

      Where did I suggest that linear control and digital control were one and the same?

      About here: "Surprising that the engineering world is still trying to hang onto simplified digital linear control."

      After that, you continue by associating analog with non-linearity: "The real world is non-linear and analog!"

      Your next mention of linearity implies digital as well because of the contrasts already set up by your previous statements: "Linear control makes things simple mathematically and deterministic, but it also extremely limiting."

      Whether or not you meant it that way, it suggests that digital control is inherently linear and that analog control is inherently non-linear, less limiting, and therefore superior. Your writing sounds like that of someone who was excited by some information that they didn't completely understand. If you would calm down and write something coherent, and back up some of your claims with something more informational than "look it up yourself", you'd make a better impression.

      I did try to find some information on Chris Toumazou's work. The best pieces of information that I could find quickly on the public, non-academic internet were vague references to analog-digital hybrid circuits in connection to a few different fields. If you've read some of his papers, maybe you could provide a synopsis of some of the aspects of his research that you found interesting, so that those of us not blessed with access to said papers might also benefit.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    15. Re:Non-linear control by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      At lunch time today, I cut my pizza with my phone.

    16. Re:Non-linear control by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      The real world is non-linear and analog!

      You know what else is non-linear? Time.

    17. Re:Non-linear control by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      Digital does not "crush" things to a 0 or a 1. For example digital anolog "crushes" it into a 0 to a 65536 or even much larger. And no there is no order or anything improvement with analog. You are literally talking out of your Ass. You have no idea what your going on about. You probably made one of those BEAM toys and believed you made a breakthrough. Yea they are cool. But they are not the future of robotics.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    18. Re:Non-linear control by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      I can buy a PIC or ARM controller cheaper than a transistor these days.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    19. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Well fair enough, I could have been clearer, but I was hoping to pitch this to people that had a basic knowledge of control theory. On reflection, this is probably too small a group. So to explain; the situation is actually somewhat reversed to the impression you have come away with. In the continuous domain (I.e. analog feedback) our mathematical models as used are only for linear systems. So if you have a non-linear system or response, you find a linear portion and stay within that range. But non-linear is extremely important even in simple systems, for example a motor saturating. You can of course create a non-linear continuous feedback system, but you can't use Laplace to help you model it. In the discrete domain (digital feedback), the mathematics become very simple and although non-linearities still pose a challenge, their are many more tools in the chest for modelling these transitions. But in the world of engineering nobody bothers with even that, they just buy a PID controller and tinker with the three values. So what we end up with is a discrete controller over a strictly linear system. And you can see the appeal, the maths and modelling is extremely simple, and most people in the domain know how to do it. What has been happening in the last couple of decades is that miniaturisation of electronics is starting to make analog relevant again on the one hand (due to size, power efficiency, speed of response, and the fact that noise is less of an issue in these applications due to size), and on the other you are seeing the exploration of the "soft" and inherently non-linear properties of biological systems to perform the function of extremely complex control systems within the robotics arena. The problem has been that we have had no mathematical way of modelling this, but this article is describing a new approach. So yes, perhaps I got a little excited and left out a bunch of detail, but that's because there is just so much detail required. I just can't understand why people aren't more interested in this stuff! I want to talk about the implications, not all the boring background!

    20. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      You are looking at this from the wrong end (and I'm not disagreeing with anything you have written). We don't have the mathematical tools to model non-linear analog systems (like the 'puppy' robot in the article), but this is not stopping people from using them. In the article they describe a new approach from a mathematical modelling perspective. These robots are exploring completely nonlinear systems with infinite state space, and getting some pretty amazing results. It's just that until recently it's been more or less heuristic.

    21. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Keep on crawling turtle man, keep on crawling.

    22. Re:Non-linear control by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      I'm not talking about discrete components; but why do I get the feeling you're not really interested?

    23. Re:Non-linear control by khallow · · Score: 1

      We don't have the mathematical tools to model non-linear analog systems (like the 'puppy' robot in the article), but this is not stopping people from using them. In the article they describe a new approach from a mathematical modelling perspective. These robots are exploring completely nonlinear systems with infinite state space, and getting some pretty amazing results. It's just that until recently it's been more or less heuristic.

      I mentioned two such tools we do have. Variational calculus and differential geometry (as applied to control systems) are a couple more (both useful for reducing the dimensional complexity of the problems in the article). And I don't see an example of a "completely nonlinearizable" system mentioned in the article. They seem pretty mundane to be honest.

    24. Re:Non-linear control by delt0r · · Score: 1

      Soo by cheaper you mean reconfig an entire VSLI assembly line to solve a single thing? You just gave new meaning to ridiculously expensive. Seriously put up or shut up. Show the proof of analog electronics superiority. You do know the BEAM guy never said it was superior either right.

      Fact is digital is cheaper, more robust and more flexible.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
  5. Prion folding computation by handy_vandal · · Score: 0

    I wonder if morphological computation can solve prion folding.problems.

    If not an outright solution, such models may provide insight: "Soft is as soft does."

    Another thought:

    Perhaps these morpho-squishy computers can run competitive genetic algorithms.

    Think Robot Wars meets Fight Club.

    I would pay to see that.

    --
    -kgj
    1. Re: Prion folding computation by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 0

      Thank you for the first link, it is highly informative. But I am reaching, reaching, and failing to see how prion folding has anything to do with this whatsoever. Seriously dude, you might want to look into your medication. Not everything is related to prions...

    2. Re: Prion folding computation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not everything is related to prions...

      Off-topic, perhaps, but *everything* biological *is* related to protein folding.

  6. Re:looking up genocidal psychopaths on alphabet.co by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    alphabet.com? Is is some kind of car analogy.

  7. Old News by harshath.jr · · Score: 2

    I believe men everywhere have been embracing complex soft bodies since time immemorial...

  8. MOD PARENT OVERRATED by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    This post is not interesting, it is vastly overrated.

    Surprising that the engineering world is still trying to hang onto simplified digital linear control.

    It's not remotely surprising. Most thinga are linear over some range, and the mathematical tools for dealing with nonlinear systems are much, much less advanced.

    The real world is non-linear and analog!

    The world is not so analog that it matters, and it's not like analog systems are lossless.

    There is a reason that the natural world works in a fundamentally non-linear analog fashion, and that is because it's better.

    WTF no. The real world simply is. There's no higher process that's chosen nonliearity for the natural world.

    It's because Chris Toumazou replaced all that clunky digital radio with vastly smaller more efficient analog circuits.

    The early brick sized TACS phones were completely analog. And I don't think there's ever been a popular commerical phone with a fully software defined radio. They're all mixed mode. In fact the more modern ones are based on spread spectrum which involves a rather coarse analog decode to baseband followed by a lot of hammreing on the signal in the digital domain.

    It's also why deaf kids can get a fully embedded cochlea implant and not have to carry around a car battery.

    The wikipedia page on cochlear implants says they use digital signal processing techniques (i.e. FFT).

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:MOD PARENT OVERRATED by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      i appear to need to correct a misconception, I'm not referring to the original analogue phones, but the original digital variants. In addition, the first fully embedded cochlear implant is possible due to the work of Chris Toumazou and his team in the analog realm. Please show me a DSP you can imbed in someone's head.

    2. Re:MOD PARENT OVERRATED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      embed

    3. Re:MOD PARENT OVERRATED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You appear to be an idiot... Please stop talking about things you know nothing about.

    4. Re:MOD PARENT OVERRATED by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      i appear to need to correct a misconception, I'm not referring to the original analogue phones, but the original digital variants.

      Um OK. Provide some evidence then.

      In addition, the first fully embedded cochlear implant is possible due to the work of Chris Toumazou and his team in the analog realm.

      OK, do you have a link for that?

      Please show me a DSP you can imbed in someone's head.

      A cortex M0+ core is about 0.0066 mm^2, and clocks in at about 3.8uW/MHz. While not a dedicated DSP, it's still got a single cycle 32 bit multiplier, so it's more than capable of doing a fiar amount of DSP work, especially at audio frequencies. I'm prettu sure you could embed that in someone's head.

      Now, there are micropower op-amps going down into the sum microwatt range (just), but you'd need a bunch of them to implement any kind of filter bank.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    5. Re:MOD PARENT OVERRATED by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      It would appear that your username is a description of your brain.

  9. No Baymax references? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Disappointed.

  10. What?? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    Ever wonder why most robots are built with hard bodies? It's because they are easier to control that way.

    Did the person who came up with this drivel actually read what they wrote?? I suppose the reason we make dinner plates, vibrators and and Lockheed C-130's hard isn't because we don't possess the tech to make them out of pliable nanomaterials... but rather so that they'll be easier to control??

    LOL!

    1. Re:What?? by rus.tech.studio · · Score: 1

      The reason all those things (well, except vibrators... just depends what kind you're referring to) are rigid is because rigid structures solve those problems very well. No one is saying rigid robots are bad -- they'll always be around for factories and such -- but if you're looking to replicate the sort of efficient, complex behaviors you see in the natural world, compliance and flexibility are key. There's a reason evolution has tended to generate semi-rigid morphologies: they are more robust in dealing with the imperfections and dangers of the natural world.