Collaborative Research: From Biology to Mechanism: Harnessing Compliance in Locomoting Systems

合作研究：从生物学到机制：利用运动系统的合规性

• 批准号: 1517842
• 负责人: Anette Hosoi
• 金额: $ 24万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1517842&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Biology; Mechanism; Harnessing

Inventors have long viewed the agility and grace of animals that crawl, swim, and fly in all environments with awe and envy. However, the ability to replicate the versatility, stability, and efficiency of biological locomotion in engineered systems has eluded scientists and engineers alike. This project will identify fundamental principles of locomotion, with an emphasis on the role of one of the most fundamental biological attributes, compliance. Compliance is ubiquitous in biological locomotion, appearing in diverse forms of life from the elastic ribbed tail of a fish, to the membrane wings of an insect, to the sinewy muscular body of a snake; when a human turns a door knob or picks up a spoon -- tasks that are nontrivial for robotic systems -- they can rely on compliance in the hand to passively adjust to small disturbances and uncertainties in the environment. This project seeks to bridge the gap between classical studies in rigid body mechanics that have long been the purview of the discipline of robotics, and compliant biological strategies for locomotion. The research will rationalize compliant strategies and structures that appear in nature. This knowledge can in turn be used to design new classes of versatile compliant machines, which may include robust strategies for locomotion and manipulation in robotic systems and new compliant mechanisms for harvesting energy. This research, which lies at the intersection of controls and the mechanics of continuously deformable systems, will develop two new mathematical approaches to tame the complexity associated with optimization of compliant systems. The first takes its roots in geometric mechanics, which has already proven effective in the study of locomotion of simple systems. The second inverts the optimization problem by first solving for optimal kinematics (e.g. optimal stroke patterns for swimmers) with a dynamic cost function, and subsequently inverting the optimal kinematics to find the associated dynamic parameters (such as bending stiffness). In addition to the development of these two new mathematical tools, the project will investigate the role of compliance within the context of different biological locomotion modes. Through decades of cumulative research, the scientific community has established a reasonable understanding of the role of compliance in isolated applications, such as legged walking and running, but comparatively little is known in terms of how this concept extends to other modes such as crawling, swimming, and insect flight. This research will address the issue through investigations of the underlying physical principles that motivate the form and physiology of each of these systems. However, the greatest contribution will come through the amalgamation of these results. By developing new insights across multiple locomotion modes, this project aims to extend the findings into a generalized framework for compliance and locomotion. This framework will then serve as a jumping off point for engineers, who can situate their own systems within a greater map of compliant design methodologies.

长期以来，发明家一直在观察到在所有敬畏和嫉妒的环境中爬行，游泳和飞行的动物的敏捷性和优雅。但是，在工程系统中复制生物运动的多功能性，稳定性和效率的能力都避开了科学家和工程师。该项目将确定运动的基本原理，并着重于最基本的生物学特性之一，即合规性。合规性在生物运动中无处不在，以各种形式的生活形式出现，从鱼的弹性肋尾巴到昆虫的膜翅膀，再到蛇的正弦肌肉； 当人类转动门把手或捡起汤匙（对于机器人系统而言是不繁琐的任务）时，他们可以依靠手中的合规性来被动地适应环境中的小型干扰和不确定性。 该项目旨在弥合经典身体力学中的古典研究之间的差距，这些研究长期以来一直是机器人技术学科的权限，以及符合运动的生物学策略。这项研究将合理化自然界中出现的合规策略和结构。 这些知识反过来又可以用于设计新的符合多功能机器的机器，这可能包括机器人系统中的运动和操纵的强大策略以及用于收集能量的新机制。这项研究位于控制与连续变形系统的机制的交集，将开发两种新的数学方法，以驯服与兼容系统的优化相关的复杂性。 第一个源自其几何力学，这已经证明在简单系统的运动研究中有效。第二个通过首先求解具有动态成本函数的最佳运动学（例如，游泳者的最佳卒中模式）来颠倒优化问题，然后逆转最佳的运动学以找到相关的动态参数（例如弯曲刚度）。除了开发这两种新的数学工具外，该项目还将研究合规性在不同的生物运动模式背景下的作用。通过数十年的累积研究，科学界已经建立了对合规性在孤立应用中的作用（例如步行和跑步）的作用的合理理解，但是关于该概念如何扩展到诸如爬行，游泳和昆虫飞行之类的其他模式的知名度相对较少。这项研究将通过调查基本的物理原理来解决问题，这些物理原理激发了每个系统的形式和生理学。 但是，最大的贡献将通过这些结果的融合来实现。通过跨多种运动模式开发新的见解，该项目旨在将发现扩展到合规性和运动的广义框架中。然后，该框架将成为工程师的起点，他们可以将自己的系统位于更大的合规设计方法中。