RI: Small: Collaborative Research: A Modular Approach to Robot Systems Incorporating Compliant and Soft Elements

生物系统可以展示令人印象深刻的节能操作，从捡起易碎的物体到举起重物。 要做到这一点，它们依赖于不同硬度的构建块，如骨骼和肌肉。 受这些生物系统的启发，该项目正在研究“硬”和“软”机器人组件的组合，创造新的“混合体”，利用个别技术的优势，并隐藏固有的弱点。这种“混合体”旨在将安全实用的软机器人技术引入以前无法进入的领域和应用，包括城市搜索/救援，救灾以及对老年人和残疾人的援助。 该项目还将在德保罗和克莱姆森的代表性不足的群体中推广机器人技术。该项目正在合作设计，建模，创建和展示一系列创新的软模块化机器人。这些模块利用硬/软部件相互作用和受约束的致动器布置来独立于弯曲控制刚度。利用模块化，这些机器人可以重新组装，或“进化”成不同的操纵器和运动。该项目正在开发一个统一的设计和优化框架，以根据用户规格优化硬/软模块的组成和最佳传感器放置。由此产生的模块制造和组装成各种机器人配置，以证明刚度调制在处理不可预见的情况下的重要性。使用这些模块，该项目还创建了一个复杂的物理平台，为软模块化机器人提供新的理论见解和创新的操作模式，并展示了形态计算的基本原理。形态计算利用物理身体属性（例如，刚度和弯曲形状）作为计算资源，可以分担控制负担，以实时优化稳定性和运动效率。这种推力是利用模块化系统的固有共振运动，通过刚度和形状调制，以最大限度地减少能量损失和提高稳定性。

Biological systems can demonstrate impressive energy efficient manipulation, from picking up fragile objects to lifting heavy weights. To do so, they rely on building blocks of varying stiffness, such as bones and muscles. Inspired by these biological systems, this project is investigating the combination of "stiff" and "soft" robotic components, creating novel "hybrids" that exploit the advantages, and conceal the inherent weaknesses, of the individual technologies. Such "hybrids" aim to bring safe and practical soft robotics to previously inaccessible domains and applications, including urban search/rescue, disaster relief, and assistance for the elderly and people with disabilities. The project will also promote robotics among underrepresented groups at both DePaul and Clemson.The project is collaboratively designing, modeling, creating, and demonstrating a series of innovative soft, modular robots. The modules are exploiting the hard/soft component interaction and constrained actuator arrangement to control stiffness independently from bending. Exploiting modularity, these robots can reassemble, or "evolve", into different manipulators and locomotors. The project is developing a unified design and optimization framework to optimize, per user specifications, the composition of hard/soft modules and optimal sensor placement. Resulting modules are fabricated and assembled into a variety of robotic configurations to demonstrate the importance of stiffness modulation in dealing with unforeseen circumstances. Using these modules, the project is also creating a sophisticated physical platform for providing new theoretical insights and innovative operational modes for soft modular robots, as well as demonstrating the fundamentals of morphological computation. Morphological computation utilizes physical body properties (e.g., stiffness and bending shape) as a computational resource that can share the burden of control to optimize stability and locomotion efficiency in real-time. This thrust is exploiting the intrinsic resonant motions of modular systems, via stiffness and shape modulation, to minimize energy loss and improve stability.