New center unites Stanford’s robotics expertise under one roof

Stanford hopes to push technology forward with new robotics center

New center unites Stanford’s robotics expertise under one roof

Imagine a robot that thinks — not with chips or wires, but with its own body. In a paper “Reprogrammable sequencing for physically intelligent underactuated robots,” researchers show how you can build mechanisms that autonomously adjust their motion in response to the environment using multistability and mechanical stimuli. By cleverly designing energy landscapes, their robot can: - Sort objects by mass - Change gait and direction when bumping into obstacles - Operate using only a single actuato