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Dryad

Data from: Machine learning driven self-discovery of the robot body morphology

Data files

Dec 05, 2023 version files 1.19 GB

Abstract

Conventionally, the kinematic structure of a robot is assumed to be known and data from external measuring devices are used mainly for calibration. We take an agent-centric perspective to explore whether a robot could learn its body structure by relying on scarce knowledge and depending only on unorganized proprioceptive signals. To achieve this, we analyze a mutual-information-based representation of the relationships between the proprioceptive signals, which we call proprioceptive information graphs (pi-graph), and use it to look for connections that reflect the underlying mechanical topology of the robot. We then use the inferred topology to guide the search for the morphology of the robot; i.e. the location and orientation of its joints. Results from different robots show that the correct topology and morphology can be effectively inferred from their pi-graph, regardless of the number of links and body configuration.