Category Ranking
98%
Total Visits
921
Avg Visit Duration
2 minutes
Citations
20
Article Abstract
Autonomous robots comprise actuation, energy, sensory and control systems built from materials and structures that are not necessarily designed and integrated for multifunctionality. Yet, animals and other organisms that robots strive to emulate contain highly sophisticated and interconnected systems at all organizational levels, which allow multiple functions to be performed simultaneously. Herein, we examine how system integration and multifunctionality in nature inspires a new paradigm for autonomous robots that we call Embodied Energy. Whereas most untethered robots use batteries to store energy and power their operation, recent advancements in energy-storage techniques enable chemical or electrical energy sources to be embodied directly within the structures and materials used to create robots, rather than requiring separate battery packs. This perspective highlights emerging examples of Embodied Energy in the context of developing autonomous robots.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04138-2 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Collective behavior of "flexicles".
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
September 2025
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
In recent years the functionality of synthetic active microparticles has edged even closer to that of their biological counterparts. However, we still lack the understanding needed to recreate at the microscale key features of autonomous behavior exhibited by microorganisms or swarms of macroscopic robots. In this study, we propose a model for a three-dimensional deformable cellular composite particle consisting of self-propelled rod-shaped colloids confined within a flexible vesicle-representing a superstructure we call a "flexicle" that couples particle deformation to the internal dynamics of the internal active components.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAgentic LLM-based robotic systems for real-world applications: a review on their agenticness and ethics.
Front Robot AI
August 2025
Information Technologies Institute, The Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Thessaloniki, Greece.
Agentic AI refers to autonomous systems that can perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve goals with minimal or no human intervention. Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) have opened new pathways to imbue robots with such "agentic" behaviors by leveraging the LLMs' vast knowledge and reasoning capabilities for planning and control. This survey provides the first comprehensive exploration of LLM-based robotic systems integration into agentic behaviors that have been validated in real-world applications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA mechanical route for cooperative transport in autonomous robotic swarms.
Nat Commun
September 2025
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Donders Center for Cognition, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Cooperative transport is a striking phenomenon where multiple agents join forces to transit a payload too heavy for the individual. While social animals such as ants are routinely observed to coordinate transport at scale, reproducing the effect in artificial swarms remains challenging, as it requires synchronization in a noisy many-body system. Here we show that cooperative transport spontaneously emerges in swarms of stochastic self-propelled robots.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCannula-mounted Robots for Semi-autonomous Vertebroplasty: A Comparison of Piezo-based and Screw-based Inchworm Drive Designs.
Int Symp Med Robot
May 2025
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Vertebral compression fractures are estimated to affect over 200 million people globally. Percutaneous vertebroplasty is a widely accepted minimally invasive treatment, but it has limitations including prolonged radiation exposure for providers and a steep learning curve. To address these challenges, we present two cannula-mounted robot designs for semi-autonomous, high-precision cannula insertion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKinematical error analysis and autonomous calibration of a 5PUS-RPUR parallel robot.
PLoS One
September 2025
School of Intelligent Manufacturing, Hangzhou Polytechnic, Hangzhou, China.
Kinematic calibration is essential for improving the absolute accuracy of parallel robots, but conventional identification methods often struggle with the complex, non-linear coupling of their numerous geometric error parameters. This can lead to convergence to local rather than global optima, limiting the effectiveness of the calibration. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a novel self-calibration methodology based on a global optimization strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF