Presidential Faculty Fellows: Design and Motion Planning ofDiscrete Robotic Systems

研究包括两个独立的项目，离散机器人系统设计和离散运动规划。首先，研究了二元作动器机器人机构的运动学、运动规划和设计。具有二元（开关）执行器的机器人具有有限数量的状态。二态驱动器的主要优点是它们可以在没有广泛反馈控制的情况下操作，任务可重复性非常高，并且两态驱动器通常非常便宜，从而导致可靠的低成本机器人用于工业用途。其次，研究了用于未知环境的“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，每个模块在晶格中占据一个空间，并且具有在相邻模块上移动的能力。模块集合的形态随集体运动的变化而变化。这种自重构能力赋予了变形机器人独特的能力。例如，模块可以“流动”到固定形态机器人无法到达的裂缝中，或者生长成包裹物体并形成稳定抓地力的结构。

The research consists of two separate projects, in discrete robotic system design and discrete motion planning. First, the kinematics, motion planning, and design of robotic mechanisms with binary actuators are 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 reliable low cost robots for industrial use. Second, the design and coordination of`metamorphic' robotic systems for use in unknown environments are investigated. A metamorphic robot is a collection of independent modules each of which occupies a space in a lattice, and 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 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.