{"id":215737,"date":"2025-06-11T06:15:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T11:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/link-bots-can-move-explore-cooperate-without-sensing-or-computation"},"modified":"2025-06-11T06:15:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T11:15:28","slug":"link-bots-can-move-explore-cooperate-without-sensing-or-computation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/link-bots-can-move-explore-cooperate-without-sensing-or-computation","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Link-bots\u2019 can move, explore, cooperate without sensing or computation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Xki6XiA-lAI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Coordinated behaviors like swarming\u2014from ant colonies to schools of fish\u2014are found everywhere in nature. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have given a nod to nature with a next-generation robot system that\u2019s capable of movement, exploration, transport and cooperation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.adu8326\" target=\"_blank\">A study in <i>Science Advances<\/i><\/a> describing the new soft robotic system was co-led by L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Physics, and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology in SEAS and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with Professor Ho-Young Kim at Seoul National University. Their work paves new directions for future, low-power swarm robotics.<\/p>\n<p>The new robots, called link-bots, are comprised of centimeter-scale, 3D-printed particles strung into V-shaped chains via notched links and are capable of coordinated, life-like movements without any embedded power or control systems. Each particle\u2019s legs are tilted to allow the bot to self-propel when placed on a uniformly vibrating surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coordinated behaviors like swarming\u2014from ant colonies to schools of fish\u2014are found everywhere in nature. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have given a nod to nature with a next-generation robot system that\u2019s capable of movement, exploration, transport and cooperation. A study in Science Advances describing the new [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,48,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-particle-physics","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}