Dynamically Dexterous Robots via Switched and Tuned Oscillators

该研究涉及对简单振荡器组合技术的实证和理论探索，以从现有的简单振荡器产生新的和更复杂的机器人行为。先前在PI实验室的资助工作已经证明，简单的振荡器可以用来赋予机器人最高级但狭窄的动态灵活性。本研究试图证明，有效的耦合技术，这些现有的行为机制可以赋予更广泛的行为范围。该实证项目解决了一个被称为“传感器驱动的动态拾取和放置”的机器人操作场景。“在这种情况下，机器人使用一个平坦的桨来获取扔进工作区的球；在杂乱中按需要平衡或击打它们；把它们放到一个够不着的目的地容器里；并抵制沿途意想不到的干扰。对振荡器的求助反映了对事件驱动操纵几乎唯一的理论关注。这种对反馈控制的承诺解决了这样一个事实，即机器可靠性的故障经常发生，因为事件本身并非不可恢复，但这些事件严重违反了我们的模型，无法预测。对动态环境中的错误检测和恢复的关注与十年前（仍在大力发展）的精细运动规划文献和来自世纪前（仍在大力发展）的动力系统文献的某些概念和分析工具相对应，这些文献在PI先前资助的工作中被证明是有用的。

The research involves empirical and theoretical inquiry into techniques for combining simple oscillators to produce new and more complex robot behaviors from existing simpler ones. Previously funded work in the PI's laboratory has already demonstrated that simple oscillators can be used to confer upon a robot superlative but narrow dynamical dexterity. The present study attempts to demonstrate that effective coupling techniques for such existing behavioral mechanisms can confer a much broader range of behavior. The empirical project addresses a robotic manipulation scenario termed ``Sensor Driven Dynamical Pick and Place.'' In this scenario, the robot uses a flat paddle to acquire balls thrown into the workspace; balance or bat them as required through a clutter; loft them into an out-of-reach destination receptacle; and resistunanticipated perturbations along the way. The recourse to oscillators reflects an almost exclusive theoretical focus on event driven manipulation. Such a commitment to feedback control addresses the fact that failures in machine reliability frequently occur because of events which are not intrinsically unrecoverable but which violate our models dramatically and cannot be anticipated. The focus on error detection and recovery in a dynamical setting brings into correspondence the concerns of the decade old (and still vigorously developing) fine motion planning literature and certain concepts and analytical tools from the century old (and still vigorously developing) dynamical systems literature that have proven useful in the PI's previously funded work.