Building blocks

This chapter introduces the “building blocks” section of the Handbook of Living Machines which explores the individual sensory and motor components that when pieced together can comprise a complete biological or artificial system. The first six chapters cover the senses of vision, audition, touch, taste, and smell (considered together as chemosensing, proprioception, and electrosensing). The remaining chapters review aspects of the biomimetics of animal movement. First, that biological muscle has many performance benefits compared with conventional electric, second, how oscillations in neural circuits can drive rhythmic movements, and finally the capacity of animal skin, in species such as geckos, to adhere to surfaces and support behaviors such as climbing.