Scientists at the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla have built a robot that is operating on biological principles and without any pre-specified instruction.

Darwin VII is a trashcan-shaped robot that has just 20,000 brain cells.

It crawls across a floor strewn with blocks, grabbing and tasting as it goes, its malleable mind impressionable and hungry to learn. It is adapting, discovering that the striped blocks are yummy and the spotted ones taste bad.

Its exploration is driven by instincts: an interest in bright objects, a predilection for tasting things, and an innate notion of what tastes good.

Darwin VII consists of a mobile base equipped with a CCD camera for vision, microphones for hearing, conductivity sensors for taste, and effectors for movement of its base, of its head, and of a gripping manipulator, university researchers Jeffrey L. Krichmar Gerald and M. Edelman write in a paper.

Via netindia.