It’s been suggested that an advance party of robots will be needed if humans are ever to settle on other planets. Sent ahead to create conditions favorable for humankind, these robots will need to be tough, adaptable and recyclable if they’re to survive within the inhospitable cosmic climates that await them.
Collaborating with roboticists and computer scientists, my team and I have been working on just such a set of robots. Produced via 3D printer and assembled autonomously, the robots we’re creating continually evolve in order to rapidly optimize for the conditions they find themselves in.
Our work represents the latest progress towards the kind of autonomous robot ecosystems that could help build humanity’s future homes, far away from Earth and far away from human oversight.