A systematic approach to creating terrain-capable hybrid soft/hard myriapod robots
A systematic approach to creating terrain-capable hybrid soft/hard myriapod robots
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DOI：
10.1109/robosoft48309.2020.9116022
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发表时间：
2020-05
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin;Baxi Chong;Enes Aydin;D. Goldman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin;Baxi Chong;Enes Aydin;D. Goldman
多足动物（多足动物），如蜈蚣，能在不同的地形上有效地移动；灵活的身体和四肢使它们能够在形态上适应环境。为了研究多足类动物身体/肢体形式的变化如何影响陆地运动的力学和性能，我们构建了一个低成本的多腿混合（包含软硬部件）机器人，该机器人有8个部分，每个部分有两个肢体。后元件和肢副由伺服电机驱动。基于几何力学应用于多足类动物的新理论结果，我们系统地测试了不同腿部接触和身体波动的步态模式，包括各种实验室和自然环境，包括平坦和不平坦的刚性地面，楼梯和非结构化的自然地形（落叶层，草地）。在平坦的地面上，具有刚性部件的机器人以与理论预测步态相同的方式移动。随着环境的复杂性增加，机器人的性能受到影响（并且理论预测变得不可用），因为有害的相互作用，如肢体堵塞。然而，通过减少环境干扰的影响或增加稳定性，为机器人的身体部位（腿、身体关节等）增加灵活性，提高了开环运动性能（通常达到平地上的水平）。我们的研究结果表明，为了制造一个灵活、坚固的机车装置，我们需要通过在实验室和自然环境中进行的系统实验，了解身体形态和生物体与其环境之间复杂、动态的相互作用的重要性。
Multi-legged animals (myriapods) such as centipedes move effectively in diverse terrain; flexible bodies and limbs allow them to morphologically adapt to the environment. To examine how the variation in body/limb forms of myriapods affect the mechanics and performance of terrestrial locomotion, we built a low-cost multi-legged hybrid (containing soft and hard components) robot which has 8 segments, each with two limbs driven out of phase. The back elements and limb pairs are driven by servo motors. Building on new theoretical results from geometric mechanics applied to myriapods, we systematically tested gait patterns with different leg contacts and body undulation on various laboratory and natural environments including flat and uneven rigid ground, stairs, and unstructured natural terrain (leaf litter, grass). On flat ground, the robot with rigid components moved in the same way as the theoretically predicted gaits. As the complexity of the environment increased, the robot’s performance suffered (and theoretical predictions became unavailable) due to deleterious interactions like jamming of limbs. However, adding flexibility into the robot’s body parts (legs, body joints etc.) improved the open-loop locomotion performance (often to levels of that on flat ground) by either reducing the effects of environmental disturbances or increasing stability. Our findings show that in order to produce an agile, robust locomotive device, we need to understand the importance of body morphology and complex, dynamic interactions between an organism and its environment through systematic experiments in both the laboratory and natural environment.