RI: Small: Theory and Experiments with Tumbling Robots

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This project revolves around tumbling which is an exciting area of robotic locomotion that takes advantage of ground-body interactions to achieve high mobility on smaller scales when compared to conventional methods. Additionally, the required hardware complexity to produce such locomotion is very low. In this respect, tumbling can be viewed as a minimalistic approach to producing miniature mobile robots capable of traversing complex and dynamic terrains. Due to the nature of tumbling however, the added mobility comes at the price of increased control complexity. The minimalistic nature of tumbling robots generally results in underactuated systems that exhibit nonholonomic constraints which greatly complicate the motion planning problem. Additionally, tumbling often involves time-varying supports and sliding contacts with the ground. Ultimately, this research views tumbling as a largely unexplored yet promising area of research. This work addresses the intricacies of tumbling locomotion. Specifically, we are developing general planning algorithms for tumbling robots and identify important design characteristics of tumbling robots that lead to simplified control. Seminars and workshops to bring together practitioners, end-users, researchers, and policy makers will be organized to have the maximal impact. Web-based dissemination of the algorithms and rapid prototyping/simulation tools ensure that the results of this project reach all communities. Students trained in this project participate in the US FIRST competitions, summer mentoring programs for high school students, summer schools in robotics, and other outreach programs.