Self-repairing mechanical systems

This paper reviews several types of self-repairing systems developed in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. We have developed a modular system capa ble of "self-assembly" and "self-repair." The former means a set of units c an form a given shape of the system without outside help; the latter means the system restores the original shape if an arbitrary part of the system i s cut off. We show both two-dimensional and three-dimensional unit designs, and distributed algorithms for the units.