“Delegating tasks to different parts of the body frees up computational space for robots to ‘think,’ allowing future generations of robots to be more aware of their social context or even more dexterous. This opens the door for a new kind of robotics in places like social care and manufacturing,” said Dr Antonio Forte, Senior Lecturer in Engineering at King’s College London and senior author of the study.
The findings, published in Advanced Science could also enable the creation of robots able to operate in situations where electricity-powered devices cannot work, such as exploration in irradiated areas like Chernobyl which destroy circuits, and in electric-sensitive environments like MRI rooms.