Mechanics of Elastoactive Structures

弹性活性结构力学

• 批准号: 2343539
• 负责人: Pierre-Thomas Brun
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-03-01 至 2027-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2343539&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mechanics; Elastoactive; Structures

This award supports a research project that investigates the dynamics and control of active elastic systems. In nature, fish, birds, and other entities capable of movement display complex choreographies when interacting in dense groups, even without a centralized conductor to guide them. These complex behaviors hold great promises in engineering, where crowds of micro-robots could coordinate their actions to complete a global task. This project hypothesizes that linking “mindless” active units to spring-like structures is a pathway for achieving such a vision. The research activities will show how to program assemblies of elastically coupled active units that perform complex tasks, e.g., “solving a maze”, although they have no traditional sensing or information-processing capabilities. This work will advance our fundamental understanding of the “mechanical intelligence” achievable by active elastic systems and could translate into new capabilities in the field of soft robotics. Concurrently, the project provides a simple, modular, and inexpensive experimental platform to illustrate abstract concepts during teaching and outreach efforts and delivers an interdisciplinary learning experience for graduate and undergraduate students. This project aims to demonstrate that we can leverage flexural structures to coordinate and program stochastically moving small-scale components. To this end, the researchers will devise a system where activity meets nonlinear elastic deformations. They will experiment with elasto-active structures comprising long and thin elastic beams connected to active agents and develop theoretical models and numerical simulations to rationalize their mechanics. Those agents are centimetric rigid-bodied micro-robots that use vibration to "walk" across a flat surface. The project first focuses on the spontaneous self-oscillations observed when a beam is clamped on one end and loaded by a micro-robot on the other end. This system will be used to establish a minimal model that couples Langevin dynamics and the Kirchhoff equations for elastic rods. The project will next study the "runners" that form when a beam is loaded by a micro-robot at each end, resulting in the beam buckling and moving across the plane. The interaction of these runners with boundaries, e.g., planar reflection, interaction with obstacles, and passage through a slit, will be examined to elucidate the contributing factors to the runners’ ability to solve complex mazes. Finally, the project will explore systems with three or more micro-bots involved, enabling run-and-tumble motions and wave propagation, thereby expanding the operating modes of these elastically coupled active agents.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.

该奖项支持一个研究项目，研究主动弹性系统的动力学和控制。在自然界中，鱼类、鸟类和其他能够运动的实体在密集的群体中相互作用时会表现出复杂的舞蹈动作，即使没有一个集中的指挥者来引导它们。这些复杂的行为在工程上有很大的希望，在那里，成群的微型机器人可以协调它们的行动来完成一项全球任务。该项目假设将“无意识”的活动单元连接到弹簧状结构是实现这一愿景的途径。研究活动将展示如何对执行复杂任务的弹性耦合有源单元组件进行编程，例如，“解决一个迷宫”，虽然他们没有传统的传感或信息处理能力。这项工作将推进我们对主动弹性系统可实现的“机械智能”的基本理解，并可能转化为软机器人领域的新能力。同时，该项目提供了一个简单，模块化和廉价的实验平台，以说明在教学和推广工作中的抽象概念，并为研究生和本科生提供跨学科的学习体验。该项目旨在证明我们可以利用弯曲结构来协调和编程随机移动的小规模组件。为此，研究人员将设计一个系统，其中活动满足非线性弹性变形。他们将实验弹性主动结构，包括连接到活性剂的细长弹性梁，并开发理论模型和数值模拟，以合理化其力学。这些智能体是厘米级的刚性微型机器人，它们利用振动在平面上“行走”。该项目首先关注的自发自振荡时观察到的梁被夹在一端，并加载由微型机器人在另一端。 这个系统将被用来建立一个最小的模型，耦合朗之万动力学和基尔霍夫方程的弹性杆。该项目接下来将研究当梁的两端被微型机器人加载时形成的“跑步者”，导致梁弯曲并在平面上移动。这些跑步者与边界的相互作用，例如，平面反射，与障碍物的相互作用，以及通过狭缝，将被检查，以阐明影响跑步者解决复杂迷宫能力的因素。最后，该项目将探索涉及三个或更多微型机器人的系统，使运行和翻滚运动和波传播，从而扩展这些弹性耦合主动代理的操作模式。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。