Collaborative Research: Leveraging Fluid-Structure Interactions for Efficient Control in Geophysical Flows

微型汽车为各种机器人和自动化应用提供了一个低成本的平台。它们出色的机动性、敏捷性和在真正的三维环境中运行的能力使无处不在的低成本传感器能够执行一系列数据收集和监控任务。微型航空、地面和海洋交通工具的最新发展在许多令人兴奋和高调的方面取得了进展。然而，由于车辆的重量轻，计算和动力能力有限，控制它们更具挑战性，因为车辆的运动受到其运行环境的显著影响。该奖项支持理解流体-结构相互作用所需的基础研究，即小型飞行器在水或空气中如何在周围流动中移动和反应。研究人员将利用这些见解为低成本微型汽车的设计和控制建立一个新的范例，从而产生更节能的系统，从而延长它们的使用寿命。这项工作是一项跨学科的努力，结合了流体动力学、控制理论和重构规划方面的知识。它将改进动态和不确定环境的导航和监测，并将在天气和气候预测、环境监测、渔业科学和航运等领域贡献基础知识，从而使美国经济和社会受益。它还将为在机器人学和流体动力学的交叉点上培训跨学科的本科生和研究生提供机会。这个项目背后的主要见解是，小型、资源受限的车辆可以利用它们几乎无限的环境力量来延长自己的动力预算和运行寿命。特别是，通过调整它们的形态，这些飞行器可以在流体环境中调整它们的运输特性，并在没有主动推进的情况下控制它们的轨迹。要实现这一愿景，将需要动力学和控制方面的基础科学，以了解车辆系统中的流体-结构相互作用，这些系统不仅具有体积和惯性，还可以重新配置其形状。该项目将在这个方向上迈出第一步：1)表征高宽比和质量对飞行器被动运输特性和这些复杂动力系统背后的惯性相干结构的影响；2)综合考虑惯性效应和潜在的流体-结构相互作用的设计和运动控制策略；3)研究各种流体流动中形态重构和主动推进之间的效率权衡。在该计划过程中开发的知识和见解将扩大微型自动驾驶车辆执行长期操作的能力，并将为未来在大规模部署微型机械方面的创新奠定基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Microvehicles provide a low-cost platform for a variety of robotics and automation applications. Their excellent maneuverability, agility, and ability to operate in truly three-dimensional environments have enabled ubiquitous, low-cost sensors for a range of data collection and monitoring tasks. Recent developments in micro-aerial, ground, and marine vehicles have advanced in many exciting and high-profile ways. However, because of the vehicles' low weight and limited computational and power capacities, controlling them is more challenging since the motion of the vehicles is significantly impacted by the environments in which they operate. This award supports fundamental research needed to understand fluid-structure interactions, that is, how small vehicles in water or air move and react within a surrounding flow. The investigators will use these insights to establish a new paradigm for the design and control of low-cost microvehicles, resulting in more power-efficient systems and, thus, extending their lifetimes. The work is an interdisciplinary effort combining knowledge in fluid dynamics, control theory, and reconfiguration planning. It will improve navigation and monitoring of dynamic and uncertain environments, and will contribute fundamental knowledge in the areas of weather and climate prediction, environmental monitoring, fisheries science, and shipping, to name just a few, thus benefiting the U.S. economy and society. It will also provide opportunities for training interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate students at the intersection of robotics and fluid dynamics.The main insight underlying this project is that small, resource-constrained vehicles can exploit their nearly limitless environmental forces to extend their own power budgets and operating lifetimes. In particular, by adjusting their morphologies, these vehicles can adapt their transport properties in a fluid environment and control their trajectories without active propulsion. Accomplishing this vision will require foundational science in dynamics and control to understand fluid-structure interactions in systems of vehicles that not only have volume and inertia, but can also reconfigure their shape. The project will make initial steps in this direction by: 1) characterizing the effect of aspect ratio and mass on a vehicle's passive transport properties and the inertial coherent structures underlying these complex dynamical systems; 2) synthesizing design and motion control strategies incorporating inertial effects and the underlying fluid-structure interactions; and 3) investigating the efficiency trade-offs between morphological reconfiguration and active propulsion in a variety of fluid flows. The knowledge and insights developed during the course of this program will expand the capabilities of micro-autonomous vehicles to perform long-term operations and will lay the groundwork for future innovations in the large-scale deployment of micro-machines.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.