'Plasmobot': Scientists To Design First Robot Using Mould ScienceDaily

[Guest guest]

This sounds like the good set up for a B rated horror movie. Man Made

Mold Robots.

" Plasmobotenstein vs. Man "

'Plasmobot': Scientists To Design First Robot Using Mould

ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2009) - Scientists at the University of the West of

England are to design the first ever biological robot using mould.

Researchers have received a Leverhulme Trust grant worth £228,000 to

develop

the amorphous non-silicon biological robot, plasmobot, using plasmodium,

the

vegetative stage of the slime mould Physarum polycephalum, a commonly

occurring mould which lives in forests, gardens and most damp places in the

UK. The Leverhulme Trust funded research project aims to design the first

every fully biological (no silicon components) amorphous

massively-parallel

robot.

This project is at the forefront of research into unconventional computing.

Professor Andy Adamatzky, who is leading the project, says their previous

research has already proved the ability of the mould to have computational

abilities.

Professor Adamatzky explains, " Most people's idea of a computer is a piece

of hardware with software designed to carry out specific tasks. This mould,

or plasmodium, is a naturally occurring substance with its own embedded

intelligence. It propagates and searches for sources of nutrients and when

it finds such sources it branches out in a series of veins of protoplasm.

The plasmodium is capable of solving complex computational tasks, such as

the shortest path between points and other logical calculations. Through

previous experiments we have already demonstrated the ability of this mould

to transport objects. By feeding it oat flakes, it grows tubes which

oscillate and make it move in a certain direction carrying objects with it.

We can also use light or chemical stimuli to make it grow in a certain

direction.

" This new plasmodium robot, called plasmobot, will sense objects, span them

in the shortest and best way possible, and transport tiny objects along

pre-programmed directions. The robots will have parallel inputs and

outputs,

a network of sensors and the number crunching power of super computers. The

plasmobot will be controlled by spatial gradients of light,

electro-magnetic

fields and the characteristics of the substrate on which it is placed. It

will be a fully controllable and programmable amorphous intelligent robot

with an embedded massively parallel computer. "

This research will lay the groundwork for further investigations into the

ways in which this mould can be harnessed for its powerful computational

abilities.

Professor Adamatzky says that there are long term potential benefits from

harnessing this power, " We are at the very early stages of our

understanding

of how the potential of the plasmodium can be applied, but in years to come

we may be able to use the ability of the mould for example to deliver a

small quantity of a chemical substance to a target, using light to help to

propel it, or the movement could be used to help assemble micro-components

of machines. In the very distant future we may be able to harness the power

of plasmodia within the human body, for example to enable drugs to be

delivered to certain parts of the human body. It might also be possible for

thousands of tiny computers made of plasmodia to live on our skin and carry

out routine tasks freeing up our brain for other things. Many scientists

see

this as a potential development of amorphous computing, but it is purely

theoretical at the moment. "

Professor Adamatzky has recently edited and had published by Springer,

'Artificial Life Models in Hardware' aimed at students and researchers of

robotics. The book focuses on the design and real-world implementation of

artificial life robotic devices and covers a range of hopping, climbing,

swimming robots, neural networks and slime mould and chemical brains.

Adapted from materials provided by University of the West of England.