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

该项目将创建和探索一个机器人架构，包括一个顺应性，形状变化，桁架状结构。桁架通常由三角形的承重构件组成，每个承重构件都可以抵抗拉伸和压缩，并且每个承重构件都在两端销接到其他构件。在这个概念中，结构构件是充气管，节点是可以沿着沿着管长度行进的简单机器人的网络。通过它们的运动，联网的节点机器人可以在整个桁架结构中引起大的形状变化，允许同一机器人重新配置自己以实现不同的功能，包括不同的运动和操纵模式。除了改变形状的能力之外，节点机器人的移动还实现了动态功能。由于结构构件是柔性可充气管，因此整个结构可以安全地用于与人类伙伴的协作活动。与一些气动机器人设计相反，可充气管名义上保持恒定的体积，因此系统不需要拴系到大容量压力源，例如大泵或空气罐。该项目融合了软机器人、集体机器人和基于桁架的机器人领域的优势，有可能克服这些单独研究领域的局限性。这种方法提供了使无处不在的，人类安全的合作机器人的应用，如形状变化的个人移动设备，可以作为一个步行者，坐到站的援助，跌倒防护设备，或楼梯援助的潜力。类似地，该方法可以用于工业应用，例如建筑工人的多功能协作机器人，根据需要改变形状以帮助提升，对齐，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性：1）在非平坦地形上移动，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巨大的力量。该项目将通过在现实世界的情景中进行假设驱动的受控实验，对每个目标的目标进行评估，并对结果进行定量指标和统计分析。新的基础知识，预计在物理网络化的分布式机器人领域，增加了新的理解这种系统的可扩展性。该项目还将推进有关机器人系统针对特定环境和任务的可定制性的知识，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理解。最后，定容气动机器人的新范例的开发构成了软机器人领域的突破性概念进步，通过消除对空气供应的需要，将大大提高软移动的机器人的实用性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.