Intelligent Soft Robot Mobility in the Real World

现实世界中的智能软体机器人移动性

• 批准号: 1728412
• 负责人: Cagdas Onal
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-15 至 2021-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1728412&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Intelligent; Soft; Robot; Mobility; Real

The goal of this project is the creation of soft, snake-like robots that can navigate through real environments with confined spaces, fragile objects, clutter, rough and/or granular surfaces. The project includes three research thrusts, namely modular mechanical design of a segmented snake robot, low-level algorithms for the robot to execute simple functional motion primitives, and high-level planning algorithms to construct appropriate sequences of motion primitives in order to meet mission objectives. Because they can deform in response to their environment, soft robots can adapt to unexpected circumstances more robustly than a rigid robot. Their high compliance gives soft robots the potential to safely and effectively interact with obstacles, and even to use surrounding objects as aids to locomotion. Robots that embrace touch instead of avoiding it could transform applications through physical human-robot partnership. Specifically, the direct use of assistive and intelligent third-hand devices or soft supernumerary arms could seamlessly provide new capabilities to workers or the disabled. Human-robot collaboration in industry could improve efficiency, reduce cost, and increase the global competitiveness of US manufacturing. The objective of this project is to endow soft robots with intelligence in navigating real-world environments autonomously using a hierarchical control approach from low-level functions and motion primitives to high-level locomotion tasks. The tasks to be accomplished towards this objective include a modular soft robot architecture with distributed actuation, high-density deformation sensing, embedded module-level control, and inter-module communication; control methods to achieve reliable and repeatable dynamic module responses, to optimize performance over time based on past iterations, and to provide high-level decision making by stochastic abstraction and control of the system in its environment through data-driven modeling; and motion planning and locomotion algorithms to find curvature bounded trajectories through cluttered environments, exploit contact to achieve obstacle aided locomotion, and 3-D motion primitives to operate on granular surfaces. 

该项目的目标是创建柔软的蛇状机器人，可以在具有有限空间、易碎物体、杂乱、粗糙和/或颗粒状表面的真实环境中导航。该项目包括三个研究重点，即分段蛇形机器人的模块化机械设计、机器人执行简单功能运动原语的低级算法，以及构建适当的运动原语序列以满足任务目标的高级规划算法。由于软机器人可以根据环境而变形，因此比刚性机器人更能适应意外情况。它们的高顺应性使软机器人有可能安全有效地与障碍物交互，甚至使用周围的物体作为运动的辅助工具。拥抱触摸而不是回避触摸的机器人可以通过物理人机伙伴关系改变应用程序。具体来说，直接使用辅助和智能第三手设备或软性多余手臂可以无缝地为工人或残疾人提供新的能力。工业中的人机协作可以提高效率、降低成本并提高美国制造业的全球竞争力。该项目的目标是赋予软机器人智能，使其能够使用从低级功能和运动基元到高级运动任务的分层控制方法自主导航现实世界环境。实现这一目标要完成的任务包括具有分布式驱动、高密度变形传感、嵌入式模块级控制和模块间通信的模块化软机器人架构；控制方法，以实现可靠且可重复的动态模块响应，根据过去的迭代随着时间的推移优化性能，并通过数据驱动建模在其环境中随机抽象和控制系统来提供高级决策；以及运动规划和运动算法，以通过杂乱的环境找到曲率有界轨迹，利用接触来实现障碍物辅助运动，以及在颗粒表面上运行的 3D 运动基元。

项目成果

A Validated Physical Model For Real-Time Simulation of Soft Robotic Snakes

• DOI: 10.1109/icra.2019.8794375
• 发表时间: 2019-04
• 期刊: 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
• 作者: Renato Gasoto;M. Macklin;Xuan Liu;Yinan Sun;Kenny Erleben;C. Onal;Jie Fu

Fast Probabilistic 3-D Curvature Proprioception with a Magnetic Soft Sensor

使用磁性软传感器进行快速概率 3D 曲率本体感觉

• DOI: 10.1109/case49439.2021.9551572
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: 2021 IEEE 17th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE
• 作者: Mitchell, Mason D.;Hurley, Forrest E.;Onal, Cagdas D.
• 通讯作者: Onal, Cagdas D.

Salamanderbot: A soft-rigid composite continuum mobile robot to traverse complex environments

• DOI: 10.1109/icra40945.2020.9196790
• 发表时间: 2020-05
• 期刊: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
• 作者: Yinan Sun;Yuqi Jiang;Han Yang;Louis-Claude Walter;J. Santoso;E. Skorina;C. Onal

Discretized Modeling of Planar Pneumatic Continuum Manipulators

平面气动连续体机械手的离散建模

• DOI: 10.1109/robosoft48309.2020.9115980
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: 2020 3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft
• 作者: Skorina, Erik H.;Onal, Cagdas D.
• 通讯作者: Onal, Cagdas D.

Learning to Locomote with Deep Neural-Network and CPG-based Control in a Soft Snake Robot

在软蛇机器人中学习使用深度神经网络和基于 CPG 的控制进行运动

• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Proceedings of the IEEERSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
• 作者: Liu, Xuan;Gasoto, Renato;Onal, Cagdas;Fu, Jie
• 通讯作者: Fu, Jie