NRI: INT: COLLAB: Mesh Of Robots on a Pneumatic Highway (MORPH): An Untethered, Human-Safe, Shape-Morphing Robotic Platform

这个项目将创建和探索一个机器人架构，由一个兼容的、形状变化的、桁架状的结构组成。桁架通常由三角形的承重构件组成，每个构件都能抗拉和抗压，并且在两端固定在其他构件上。在这个概念中，结构成员是充气管道，节点是一个简单的机器人网络，可以沿着管道长度移动。通过它们的运动，网络节点机器人可以引起整体桁架结构的巨大形状变化，允许同一机器人重新配置自身以实现不同的功能，包括不同的运动和操作模式。除了能够改变形状外，节点机器人的运动还可以实现动态功能。由于结构成员是柔性充气管，因此整个结构可以安全地与人类伙伴进行协作活动。与一些气动机器人设计相反，充气管名义上保持恒定的体积，因此系统不需要连接到高容量压力源，如大型泵或空气罐。该项目结合了软机器人、集体机器人和基于桁架的机器人领域的优势，具有克服这些单独研究领域局限性的潜力。这种方法为实现无处不在的、对人类安全的协作机器人提供了潜力，比如一种可变形的个人移动设备，它可以在必要时充当助行器、坐立辅助器、防跌倒装置或楼梯辅助器。同样，这种方法也可以用于工业应用，比如建筑工人的多功能协同机器人，根据需要改变形状来帮助抬起、对准、保持、支撑或推动。最后，这个多功能和人性化的概念非常适合作为非专家的教育和发展平台，例如作为K-12学生的动手学习工具。该项目围绕三个目标进行组织，每个目标都需要增加复杂性和功能：1)在非平坦地形上的运动，2)爬行，攀爬和跳跃，以及3)吞噬，操纵和对环境中的物体施加大的力。该项目将通过在现实世界场景中进行的假设驱动、受控实验，对结果进行定量度量和统计分析，从而评估与每个目标目标相关的结果。新的基础知识预计将在物理网络化的分布式机器人领域，增加对这种系统的可扩展性的新理解。该项目还将推进机器人系统对特定环境和任务的可定制性，探索给定拓扑结构的最佳控制和形状变化。此外，用于大型软体机器人的可控摩擦材料的开发将为软体机器人与其环境之间的相互作用提供新的认识。最后，恒定体积气动机器人新范式的发展构成了软机器人领域突破性的概念进步，这将大大提高软移动机器人的实用性，通过消除对空气供应的需求。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。

This project will create and explore a robotic architecture consisting of a compliant, shape-changing, truss-like structure. A truss typically consists of triangles of load-bearing members, each of which can resist tension and compression and each of which is pinned to other members at both ends. In this concept, the structural members are inflated tubes and the nodes are a network of simple robots that can travel along the tube lengths. By their motion, the networked node-robots can cause large shape changes in the overall truss structure, allowing the same robot to reconfigure itself for diverse functions, including different modes of locomotion and manipulation. In addition to the ability to change shape, movement of the node-robots also enables dynamic functionality. Because the structural members are compliant inflatable tubes, the entire structure can be made safe for collaborative activities with human partners. In contrast to some pneumatic robot designs the inflatable tubes nominally maintain a constant volume, hence the system does not need to be tethered to a high capacity pressure source such as a large pump or air tank. This project incorporates strengths from the fields of soft robotics, collective robotics, and truss-based robotics, with the potential to overcome limitations of these individual research areas. The approach offers the potential for enabling ubiquitous, human-safe co-robots for applications such as a shape-changing personal mobility device that could act, as necessary, as a walker, a sit-to-stand aid, a fall-guarding device, or a stair aid. Similarly the approach could be used in industrial applications, such as a multi-function co-robot for construction workers, changing shape as needed to help lift, align, hold, prop, or push. Finally, this versatile and human-friendly concept is well-suited as an education and development platform for non-experts, for example as a hands-on learning tool for K-12 students. This project is organized around three objectives, each requiring increasing complexity and functionality: 1) locomotion across non-flat terrain, 2) crawling, climbing, and jumping, and 3) engulfing, manipulating, and applying large forces to objects in the environment. The project will evaluate the results with respect to the goals of each objective through hypothesis-driven, controlled experiments in real-world scenarios with quantitative metrics and statistical analyses of the results. New fundamental knowledge is anticipated in the realm of physically networked distributed robots, adding new understanding about the scalability of such systems. The project will also advance knowledge surrounding customizability of robotic systems to specific environments and tasks, exploring optimal control and shape change of a given topology. Additionally, the development of controllable friction materials for large-scale soft robots will provide new understanding of interactions between soft robots and their environments. Finally, the development of a new paradigm of constant-volume pneumatic robotics constitutes a groundbreaking conceptual advance to the field of soft robotics, which will greatly enhance the practicality of soft mobile robots, by eliminating the need for an air supply.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.