Mathematical Foundation of Flexible and Soft Manufacturing Robot Systems

在汽车、航空航天、食品、建筑和农业等许多行业，为了提高生产率、确保安全并执行困难的精密任务，先进的制造机器人技术（如软机器人）是必要的。柔性和软制造机器人系统具有复杂的几何形状，并经历理想和不希望的变形，其控制和稳定性是主要关注的问题，特别是当使用轻质软材料时。然而，这种柔性机器人的数学基础尚未建立，我们对它们的力学知识仍然非常不完整。由于缺乏先进的虚拟原型技术，这一挑战的严重性是显而易见的，而虚拟原型技术是其他物理和工程系统的设计、分析和性能评估的组成部分。该项目将进行基础研究，为柔性和软制造机器人系统创建数学基础和新的计算算法，以解决虚拟原型的挑战。新的数学基础将改进分析和性能评估方法，捕获现有简化方法无法捕获的重要细节，允许虚拟测试新的和改进的设计，使此类系统更经济、更安全，并加速此类机器的设计、开发和商业化。本研究中开发的新知识、方法和数值算法将用于伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校的本科生和研究生教育。将通过传播、培训和外联活动实现更广泛的影响。科学挑战包括机器人几何和分析的集成；实现一般和非常规的材料模型和致动力；采用新概念进行机械关节建模；并开发了高效鲁棒的虚拟样机算法。本研究旨在通过开发一种基于绝对节点坐标公式的新的基于连续体的有限元和多体系统方法来解决这些挑战。该公式允许建模任意大的耦合位移，正确捕获复杂的几何形状，并允许实现一般和非常规的材料模型。在本研究项目中，考虑到机器人部件几何结构的复杂性，将开发常规和非常规驱动力的精确定义，这些定义可以使用绝对节点坐标公式的有限元系统地捕获。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Advanced manufacturing robot technologies, such as soft robots, are necessary in order to increase productivity, ensure safety, and perform difficult precision tasks in many industry sectors including automotive, aerospace, food, construction, and agricultural. The control and stability of flexible and soft manufacturing robotic systems, which have complex geometries and experience desirable and undesirable deformations, are of major concern, particularly when lightweight softer materials are used. However, the mathematical foundation of such flexible and soft robots has not been established and our knowledge of their mechanics remains remarkably incomplete. The seriousness of this challenge is evident by the lack of advanced virtual prototyping techniques that are integral part of the design, analysis, and performance evaluation of other physics and engineering systems. This project will conduct fundamental research to create the mathematical foundation and new computational algorithms for flexible and soft manufacturing robot systems in order to address virtual prototyping challenges. The new mathematical foundation will improve the analysis and performance evaluation methods, capture significant details that cannot be captured by existing simplified approaches, allow for virtually testing new and improved designs, make such systems more affordable and safer, and accelerate the design, development, and commercialization of such machines. The new knowledge, approaches, and numerical algorithms developed in this research will be used in the education of undergraduate and graduate students at University of Illinois at Chicago. The broader impact will be realized through dissemination, training, and outreach activities.The scientific challenges include the integration of the robot geometry and analysis; implementation of general and unconventional material models and actuation forces; use of new concepts for mechanical joint modelling; and developing efficient and robust algorithms for virtual prototyping. This research seeks to address these challenges by developing a new transformative continuum-based finite element and multibody system approach based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation. This formulation allows modeling arbitrarily large and coupled displacements, correctly captures complex geometries, and allows implementing general and nonconventional material models. In this research project, accurate definitions of conventional and non-conventional actuation forces will be developed taking into consideration the complexity of the geometry of the robot components, which can be systematically captured using the finite elements of the absolute nodal coordinate formulation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.