NYI: Motion Planning and Optimal Design of Binary and Metamorphic Robotic Manipulators

9357738 奇里克吉安 该奖项为为期五年的NSF青年研究者奖的第一年基本金额提供资金。研究目标包括两个独立的项目。 首先，运动学，运动规划和设计的机构与“二元致动器”将被调查。 具有二进制（开-关）执行器的机器人具有有限数量的状态。二元驱动机械手的主要优点是，它们可以在没有广泛的反馈控制的情况下操作，任务可重复性非常高，并且双状态致动器通常非常便宜，从而导致工业使用的低成本机器人。 其次，将研究在未知环境中使用的“变形”机器人系统的设计和协调。 变形机器人是一个独立模块的集合，每个模块都有能力超越相邻模块。 模块集合的形态随着集体运动而变化。这种自我重构能力可能赋予变形机器人独特的能力。例如，模块可以“流入”固定形态机器人无法到达的裂缝，或者生长形成包裹物体并形成稳定抓握的结构。

9357738 Chirikjian This award funds the first-year base amount of a five-year NSF Young Investigator Award. The research goals consist of two separate projects. First, the kinematics, motion planning, and design of mechanisms with `binary actuators' will be investigated. Robots with binary (on-off) actuators have a finite number of states. Major benefits of binary actuated manipulators are that they can be operated without extensive feedback control, task repeatability is very high, and two-state actuators are generally very inexpensive, thus resulting in low cost robots for industrial use. Second, the design and coordination of `metamorphic' robotic systems for use in unknown environments will be investigated. A metamorphic robot is a collection of independent modules each of which has the ability to locomote over adjacent modules. The morphology of the collection of modules changes as a function of the collective motion. Such self-reconfigurability potentially gives metamorphic robots unique abilities. For instance, modules can `flow' into crevasses unreachable by fixed morphology robots, or grow to form structures which envelop objects and form stable grasps.