CAREER: A Modular, Embodied Control Strategy for Autonomous Soft Robots

该学院早期职业发展（Career）奖将为实现软机器人的自主行为建立新的策略。近年来，软机器人引起了人们的极大兴趣，它们的合规性非常适合敏感、非结构化或动态应用，例如医疗机器人、辅助技术和带有易碎组件的制造。然而，在软机器人中，传感、控制和驱动可能是困难的，因为它们的软体与传统的、刚性的电子设备的接口很差。此外，传统的机电一体化系统不太适合控制软材料的大量自由度，并且可能与各种应用不兼容，例如体内医疗应用。在这项工作中，自主行为，如关于轨迹的决策，将通过分布在整个机器人的刺激响应控制模块体现在软机器人本身。控制模块响应局部环境的集体作用可以对机器人身体的形状和驱动行为产生很大的变化，从而对机器人的步态、轨迹和功能产生很大的变化。该奖项还将为宾夕法尼亚州农村和城市学区的高中教师提供软机器人和制造方面的培训。综合研究和教学计划将包括使用多材料3D打印构建自主软机器人的实用策略，以及更广泛地参与代表性不足的第一代研究人员。这项工作的目的是建立一种基于使用控制模块来调节软机器人的形状和/或气动逻辑的具身传感和控制策略。模块的激活和停用将由刺激响应材料自主调节，如液晶弹性体和磁活性复合材料，这些材料通过多材料3D打印与机器人集成。模块可以移动、添加或删除，以重新编程分布式控制系统并改变机器人的行为。这项工作将使用两种类型的定制软机器人进行数值模拟和实验，一种基于kirigami的机器人和一种模块化滚动机器人。当机器人在环境中自主导航，改变路径和响应多种输入（例如热和光）时，将评估嵌入的控制策略。该项目由跨部门机器人基础研究项目支持，由工程（ENG）和计算机与信息科学与工程（CISE）联合管理和资助。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 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will establish a new strategy for achieving autonomous behaviors in soft robots. Soft robots have been of significant interest in recent years, with their compliance being ideal for sensitive, unstructured, or dynamic applications, e.g., medical robotics, assistive technologies, and manufacturing with fragile components. However, sensing, control, and actuation can be difficult in soft robots, with their soft bodies interfacing poorly with conventional, rigid electronics. Moreover, traditional mechatronic systems are not well-suited for controlling the large number of degrees of freedom of soft materials and may be incompatible with a variety of applications, e.g., in vivo medical applications. In this work, autonomous behaviors such as decisions about trajectory will be embodied in the soft robot itself via stimuli-responsive control modules distributed throughout the robot. The collective action of the control modules in response to the local environment can produce large changes to the shape of the robot’s body and its actuation behavior, and thereby to the gait, trajectory, and function of the robot. This award will also provide training in soft robotics and manufacturing to Pennsylvania high school teachers from rural and urban school districts. The integrated research and teaching plans will include practical strategies for building autonomous soft robots with multimaterial 3D printing and broader engagement of underrepresented and first-generation researchers.The objective of this work is to establish a strategy for embodied sensing and control based on the use of control modules that regulate the shape and/or pneumatic logic of soft robots. The activation and deactivation of the modules will be autonomously regulated by stimuli-responsive materials, such as liquid crystal elastomers and magnetoactive composites, that are integrated with the robot via multimaterial 3D printing. Modules could be moved, added, or removed to reprogram the distributed control system and change the behavior of the robot. This work will use both numerical simulations and experiments with two types of custom soft robots, a kirigami-based robot and a modular rolling robot. The embodied control strategy will be assessed as the robots autonomously navigate through the environment, changing path, and function in response to multiple inputs (e.g., heat and light).This project is supported by the cross-directorate Foundational Research in Robotics program, jointly managed and funded by the Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).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.