5. Conclusion

Applied research thus contributes to endowing robots with certain general attributes of life, such as adaptability, self-organization and self-repair. Similarly, fundamental research contributes to a better understanding of living autonomy because, far from aiming to replace natural biodiversity with artificial silico-diversity – as some critics of this approach claim –, it significantly increases the scope of knowledge acquired about living systems, on whatever scale – nano or macro –.

Among the biomimetic approaches that have long been widely developed around the world, bio-inspired robotics is taking on an increasingly...