WVU sees potential in shape-shifting robot named ‘Loopy’

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — Roboticists at the West Virginia University Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources see potential in a “multicellular robot” named Loopy that may be able to determine its own shape with limited support from its human engineers.

A WVU research team led by Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni Professor Yu Gu will test the robot’s abilities and see if Loopy can use its interconnected “body” to mark the boundary of a contaminated area, such as the site of an oil or toxin spill.

“Loopy is an example of ‘swarm robotics,’” Gu said in a WVU Today press release. “Many small robot cells interlink to make Loopy, allowing lifelike traits and complex, coordinated behaviors like problem-solving to emerge from the cells’ simple, decentralized reactions to stimuli.”

Each of the 36 cells that make up the robot’s body can control its own movements and have sensors to track its joint angle and external conditions including light and temperature.

The team is planning to outfit a tabletop test environment with thermal wires, overhead cameras, including a thermal camera, a motion capture system and a projector. The wires will create warm spots to simulate contamination areas, and researchers will track the robot’s accuracy in circling around those areas, how it reacts with little or inaccurate information and how it reacts in unforeseen circumstances.

“What we want to know is whether Loopy’s self-organized solutions to problems offer greater adaptability and resilience than programmed behaviors, and how to harness robotic swarm behaviors for practical applications,” Gu said in the release. “Once we have established the conditions that foster the spontaneous emergence of these complex behaviors in multicellular robots, I believe robots that work like Loopy will have potential for applications as diverse as adaptive leak sealing or interactive art displays.”

The work will be supported by a National Science Foundation award.

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