CAREER: Additively Manufactured Soft Robots with Integrated Fluidic Logic and Flexible Electronic Interfaces

该学院早期职业发展计划(Career)项目将支持研究，以创造一种新的定制式、可3D打印的软机器人，具有容忍水平的结构变形的能力，这种变形将使传统的计算和控制方法失效。该项目的目标是能够快速设计、制造和部署一支高度定制化的机器人舰队，以应对独特而紧迫的任务。例如，这些机器人将能够在洞穴系统或残骸领域中蜿蜒的狭小空间中导航，这可能是机器人搜救或探索所需的。机械智能、嵌入式流体电路和灵活的电子设备的协同使用将使这些新的机器人能力成为可能。机械智能--利用机器人的几何和材料特性来适应意想不到的条件--可以显著减少机器人实现其目标所需的计算能力。流体逻辑使用流体在机器人体内灵活通道中的运动，将来自接触传感器和其他外部刺激的信号转换为打开和关闭机器人执行器的命令。流体逻辑可以直接内置到机器人体内，并在不失去功能的情况下弯曲和扭曲。最后，最好的电子通信和控制功能将使用具有高动态变形容忍度的灵活和可伸缩的电子设备来实现。由此产生的机器人将能够实现复杂的功能，同时根据需要进行严重的形状变化，以穿越原本无法到达的空间。全面的教育活动纳入并补充了这项研究，包括一门关于可打印机器人的新的实践本科课程，以及伍斯特县公立高中的外展计划。该项目将创建可以使用附加制造技术快速进行3D打印的机器人体系结构，以生产能够在有限空间中爬行、跳跃、游泳和潜水的廉价机器人，并且可以快速定制以纳入特定任务的细节。研究目标是3D打印机器人，具有集成的流体状态机，可以响应流体传感器并控制流体执行器。一种新型的互补流体逻辑门和电流体存储元件将从集成了线性致动器和流体管路的多稳态柔性梁结构中发展出来。柔性电子电路和电流体互连将使用导电油墨和弹性体集成到机器人中。电子学的作用将被最小化，并仅限于选择流体功能、使流体传感器和执行器功能化以及将程序写入流体存储器。该计划将为陆地、水下和两栖机器人提供全面的机器人体系结构，包括设计、制造工艺、建模和控制方法以及软件。该项目将维护一个不断发展的机器人组件库，并将寻求通过赞助一系列越来越具有挑战性的基准场景来建立研究人员和潜在用户的社区，该场景受到2018年泰国Tham Luang洞穴救援的启发。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。

This Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) project will support research to create a new class of made-to-order, 3D-printable soft robots with the capability to tolerate levels of structural deformations that would disable conventional approaches to computing and control. The goal of the project is to be able to rapidly design, fabricate, and deploy a highly customized fleet of robots to respond to unique and urgent missions. These robots would be able to, for example, navigate small, winding spaces in cave systems or debris fields, as might be required for robotic search-and-rescue or exploration. The synergistic use of mechanical intelligence, embedded fluidic circuits, and flexible electronics will enable these new robot capabilities. Mechanical intelligence - the use of robot geometry and material properties to adapt to unexpected conditions - can significantly reduce the amount of computing capacity needed for the robot to accomplish its goals. Fluidic logic uses the movement of fluid in flexible channels within the robot body to convert signals from contact sensors and other external stimuli into commands that turn robot actuators on and off. Fluidic logic can be directly built into the robot body and bend and twist without losing function. Finally, communication and control functions that are best performed electronically will be implemented using flexible and stretchable electronics with a high tolerance for dynamic deformation. The resulting robots will be able to implement sophisticated functionality, while undertaking severe shape changes as needed, to traverse otherwise inaccessible spaces. Comprehensive educational activities incorporate and complement the research, including a new hands-on undergraduate course on printable robotics, and an outreach program to public high schools in Worcester County. This project will create robot architectures that can be quickly 3D printed using additive manufacturing techniques, to produce inexpensive robots that can crawl, jump, swim, and dive through confined spaces, and which can be rapidly customized to incorporate mission-specific details. The research goal is to 3D print robots with integrated fluidic state machines that respond to fluidic sensors and control fluidic actuators. A new class of complementary fluidic logic gates and electro-fluidic memory elements will be developed from multi-stable flexing beam structures with integrated linear actuators and fluidic tubing. Flexible electronic circuits and electro-fluidic interconnects will be integrated into the robots using conductive inks and elastomers. The role of electronics will be minimized and limited to selecting fluidic functionalities, functionalizing fluidic sensors and actuators, and writing programs into fluidic memory. The program will deliver a comprehensive robot architecture for terrestrial, underwater, and amphibious robots, including designs, fabrication processes, modeling and control methodologies, and software. The project will maintain a continuously evolving robot component library and will seek to build a community of researchers and potential users by sponsoring a sequence of increasingly challenging benchmarking scenarios inspired by the Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand in 2018.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.