Acoustic Communication and Sensing for Inflatable Modular Soft Robots
Acoustic Communication and Sensing for Inflatable Modular Soft Robots
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DOI：
10.1109/icra48506.2021.9561183
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发表时间：
2021-01
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Daniel S. Drew;Matthew R. Devlin;E. Hawkes;Sean Follmer
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文献类型：
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作者：
Daniel S. Drew;Matthew R. Devlin;E. Hawkes;Sean Follmer
模块化软机器人结合了两个传统上独立的机器人领域的优势。作为模块化机器人，它们可以表现出对个体故障的鲁棒性和可重构性；作为软机器人，它们可以变形和经历较大的形状变化，以适应环境，并具有固有的人类安全性。然而，对于传感和通信，这些机器人也结合了两者的挑战：它们需要可扩展(低成本和复杂性)和高效(低功率)的解决方案，以支持大量机器人的集合，并且这些解决方案还必须能够与软机器人的高伸缩率弹性体接口。在这项工作中，我们试图使用廉价、简单和低功率的压电式表面换能器产生的声信号来解决这些挑战，这种换能器不仅可以与弹性机器人皮肤集成，还可以利用弹性机器人皮肤进行信号传输。重要的是，为了进一步提高可扩展性，换能器展示了多功能，这使得在可听和超声波范围内相对平坦的频率响应成为可能。只需最少的硬件，它们就可以实现基于定向接触的通信、远距离的可听范围通信和外部感知。我们演示了这些功能使多机器人硬件实现成为可能的分散集体行为的子集。在这一领域中使用声波比现有的解决方案提供了明显的优势。
Modular soft robots combine the strengths of two traditionally separate areas of robotics. As modular robots, they can show robustness to individual failure and reconfigurability; as soft robots, they can deform and undergo large shape changes in order to adapt to their environment, and have inherent human safety. However, for sensing and communication these robots also combine the challenges of both: they require solutions that are scalable (low cost and complexity) and efficient (low power) to enable collectives of large numbers of robots, and these solutions must also be able to interface with the high extension ratio elastic bodies of soft robots. In this work, we seek to address these challenges using acoustic signals produced by piezoelectric surface transducers that are cheap, simple, and low power, and that not only integrate with but also leverage the elastic robot skins for signal transmission. Importantly, to further increase scalability, the transducers exhibit multi-functionality made possible by a relatively flat frequency response across the audible and ultrasonic ranges. With minimal hardware, they enable directional contact-based communication, audible-range communication at a distance, and exteroceptive sensing. We demonstrate a subset of the decentralized collective behaviors that these functions make possible with multi-robot hardware implementations. The use of acoustic waves in this domain is shown to provide distinct advantages over existing solutions.