Benefits and Challenges of Morphological Adaptation in Real-world Robots

Abstract

For many years, the main target of robotics research has been how to improve control and behavior to allow robots to solve more challenging tasks. Recently, the concept of embodied intelligence has shifted this focus from pure control to a more holistic approach. The mind, body, environment, and the interactions between all these are all highly important for the performance of a robot system. This has previously been investigated in virtual robots in simulation or very simple physical robots in the lab, but the benefits for more advanced and capable real-world robots are still to be determined. We present a case study with several examples of real-world adaptation of morphology, and discuss the benefits and challenges as this direction becomes more important in the field of robotics. Taking an embodied approach promises more adaptive and robust robots, but there are many challenges that need to be addressed before wide-spread adoption in the robotics community.