This crawling 3D printed robot is able to learn about obstacles in its path and navigate around or over them.

The robot could be a forerunner to robots that can learn and adapt to the situations they find themselves in, even going so far as to remodel themselves to suit the terrain, the researchers at the University of Oslo said.

There have been three different robots created, one with three legs, another with four and a final one with six legs. Each were designed to tackle different scenarios.

It can be seen crawling across their laboratory in a way that isn’t completely comfortable to watch.

The robot doesn’t make moving look like the easiest task in the world but it still moves less like an dying animal than this soft robot created earlier this year.

Howver, the researchers from the university said they will be testing how the robots work if they are printed in a softer material.

Associate Professor Kyrre Glette from the Norwegian university said that robots will increasingly need to be able to look after themselves as they take on more unmanned missions

Looking far ahead, Glette said: “In the future, robots must be able to solve tasks in deep mines on distant planets, in radioactive disaster areas, in hazardous landslip areas and on the sea bed beneath the Antarctic.

“These environments are so extreme that no human being can cope. Everything needs to be automatically controlled.”

Glette said that a potential situation could see a robot come across an unforeseen set of stairs. It takes a photo and allows the situation to be analysed. Then, “the arms of one of the robots is fitted with a printer. This produces a new robot, or a new part for the existing robot, which enables it to negotiate the stairs.”

However, there is a long way to go until anything like this will fully exist, even in a research environment.

“There are many practical challenges ahead before our robots can be exploited commercially. Our greatest challenge is to develop robust algorithms and a system which is able to make use of imprecise simulations,” Glette continued.

The robot is, in part, created by a computer simulation.

The researchers tell the programme what capabilities they want from the robot and what the situation it is being placed in is. The simulation does the rest.

Glette said: “We tell the simulation program what we would like the robot to do, how fast it should walk, its size and energy consumption. For instance, we may want the robot to be able to turn around and change direction, climb over boulders and walk on rugged ground.”

The programme then suggests the best solution for the robot, which includes the number of legs and shape of the body.

Mats Høvin, who also worked on the project, said that it is important that future robots are able to adapt themselves to the environments they are in.

This is because unexpected events can change what the robot needs to be capable of and there is a “reality gap” that needs to be overcome.

Høvin said: “Once the robots have been printed, their real-world functionalities quite often prove to be different from those of the simulated versions.

“There will always be differences. Perhaps the floor is more slippery in reality, meaning that the friction coefficient will have to be changed.”

Images courtesy of the University of Oslo.