M-Blocks, modular robots, Distributed Robotics Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

A robot developed by roboticists at the University of Pennsylvania is made of modules that can recognise each other.

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These proof-of-concept robots are the first step in a project that will hopefully lead to the development of modular robot blocks that are cable of generic lattice-based self-reconfiguration. This current generation of robots is limited to being able to "roll" in only one direction per cube, and is remote controlled. Future work will hopefully add the ability for a single robot to move in all three planes.

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Known as M-Blocks, the robots are cubes with no external moving parts. Nonetheless, they're able to climb over and around one another, leap through the air, roll across the ground, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces.

Inside each M-Block is a flywheel that can reach speeds of 20,000 revolutions per minute; when the flywheel is braked, it imparts its angular momentum to the cube. On each edge of an M-Block, and on every face, are cleverly arranged permanent magnets that allow any two cubes to attach to each other.

Read more:

"Surprisingly simple scheme for self-assembling robots"
Small cubes with no exterior moving parts can propel themselves forward, jump on top of each other, and snap together to form arbitrary shapes.

by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office
October 4, 2013

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