Opinions and Outlooks on Morphological Computation

Abstract

Recently, two theoretical models for morphological computation have been proposed [13, 14]. Based on a rigorous mathematical framework and simulations it has been demonstrated that compliant, complex physical bodies can be effectively employed as computational resources. Even more recent work showed that these models are not only of theoretical nature, but are also applicable to a number of different soft robotic platforms. Motivated by these encouraging results we discuss a number of remarkable implications when real physical bodies are employed as computational resources