{"id":290604,"date":"2025-07-25T12:45:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/290604\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T12:45:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:45:15","slug":"cannibal-robot-scientists-develop-a-robot-that-can-grow-and-heal-by-eating-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/290604\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannibal robot? Scientists develop a robot that can grow and heal by eating others"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            24\/07\/2025 &#8211; 15:02 GMT+2\n            <\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-grey-6-180x22.svg\" width=\"180\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n            ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>This robot is not the first transformer mechanism revealed to the public, but the way it transforms is certainly novel \u2013 it grows and heals by consuming other robots.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from Columbia University in the United States have developed a robot, called the Truss Link, that can detect and merge with pieces of robots nearby to fill in missing parts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;True autonomy means robots must not only think for themselves but also physically sustain themselves,&#8221; Philippe Martin Wyder, lead author and researcher at Columbia Engineering and the University of Washington, wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Made with magnetic sticks, the Truss Link can expand or transform from a flat shape to a 3D structure to adapt to the environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It can also add new bits from other robots or discard old parts that are not functional anymore to increase its performance.<\/p>\n<p>In a video posted by the team, the robot merges with a piece nearby and uses it as a walking stick to increase its speed by more than 50 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGives legs to AI\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Researchers named the process in which the robot self-assembles bits of other robots \u201crobot metabolism\u201d. It is described as a natural biological organism that can often absorb and integrate resources.<\/p>\n<p>Robots like the Truss Link can \u201cprovide a digital interface to the physical world, and give legs to AI,\u201d according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UDYLUnniysU&amp;ab_channel=ColumbiaEngineering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">video<\/a> produced by Columbia Engineering School.<\/p>\n<p>Integrated with AI, they possess great potential, experts believe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Robot metabolism provides a digital interface to the physical world and allows AI to not only advance cognitively, but physically \u2013 creating an entirely new dimension of autonomy,&#8221; said Wyder.<\/p>\n<p>The Truss Link could, in future, be used to help develop groundbreaking technologies spanning from marine research to rescue services to extraterrestrial life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ultimately, it opens up the potential for a world where AI can build physical structures or robots just as it, today, writes or rearranges the words in your email,&#8221; Wyder said.<\/p>\n<p>Programming robots has been a challenge for engineers; however, artificial intelligence is advancing developments in robotics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe now have the technology [AI] to make robots really programmable in a general-purpose way and make it so that normal people can programme them, not just specific robot programming engineers,&#8221; Rev Lebaredian, vice president of Omniverse and simulation technology at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/tag\/nvidia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Nvidia<\/strong><\/a>, told Euronews Next in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 24\/07\/2025 &#8211; 15:02 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT This robot is not the first transformer mechanism revealed to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1942,60790,8668,20372,108180,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-290604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-autonomous-vehicles","10":"tag-computer-science","11":"tag-new-technologies","12":"tag-robotic","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114913943597443131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}