Scientists said they have created a brainy, four-legged robot resembling a starfish that can sense damage to its body and, on its own, think up a way to recover. Researchers Hod Lipson and Victor Zykov of Cornell University and Josh Bongard of the University of Vermont made a robot that observed its own motion using built-in sensors in its joints and then generated its own concept of itself, or at least its physical structure, in its internal computer. It used this internal model of itself to figure out how to walk on its four legs and eight motorized joints. Lipson said the robot used various movements of its joints, first to generate hypotheses and then to formulate an accurate conception of itself. The researchers then tested the robot’s ability to adapt to new situations–in this case injury–by shortening one of its legs. “The robot knows something’s wrong,” Lipson said. This robot responded by generating on its own a new concept of its structure, accurately sensing it had been altered, and then devising a new way to walk using a different gait to compensate for the injury.