Voxel Robot: A Pneumatic Robot with Deformable Morphology

Mark Roper, Nikolaos Katsaros, Chrisantha Fernando

Abstract: The Voxbot is a cubic (voxel) shaped robot actuated by expansion and contraction of its 12 edges designed for running evolutionary experiments, built as cheaply as possible. Each edge was made of a single 10ml medical syringe for pneumatic control. These were connected to an array of 12 servos situated on an external housing and controlled with an Arduino microcontroller from a laptop. With twenty motor primitive commands and the slow response of its pneumatics this robot allows real time controllers to be evolved in situ rather than just in simulation. With simple combinations and sequencing of motor primitives the Voxbot can be made to walk, rotate and crab crawl. The device is available in kit form and is very easy to build and replicate. Other morphologies can be built easily.