Soft and Bio-Inspired Legged Locomotion for Climbing in Extreme Environments

主要目标将是开发一种腿式机器人，它可以使用柔软和生物启发的组件在极端环境中攀爬。虽然轮式机器人只能在达到一定的倾斜度之前使用，而无人机只能在非常有限的时间内使用，但腿式机器人甚至可以穿越困难的地形。使用柔软和生物启发组件的目标是降低控制复杂性和生产此类机器人的成本。这里选择的示例环境是火山，需要进行长期测量。与火山学家Emma Liu博士（UCL）的讨论已经确定了自主陆地机器人的潜力，为大大改善现场火山测量提供了平台。火山是一个危险的环境，这使得人类无法进行测量，但由于特殊的拓扑结构，轮式机器人也很难在其中移动。最后，无人机的使用也只能在有限的程度上，因为测量必须在较长的时间范围内进行。正因为如此，这是一个完美的场景腿攀爬机器人。虽然不同的腿机器人系统存在，特别是在极端环境中攀爬，他们是复杂和昂贵的制造，因此尚未在相关的现实世界环境中使用。通过创造一个软腿机器人，单个机器人的成本可以大大降低，这是由于更便宜的材料，如硅树脂，以及通过减少使用传感器和计算能力，由于软机器人的体现智能。

The main goal will be to develop a legged robot, which can climb in extreme environments using soft and bio-inspired components. While wheeled robots can only be used until a certain inclination is reached anddrones only for a very limited time, legged robots can traverse even difficult terrains. The goal in using soft and bio-inspired components is to decrease the control complexity and the cost of producing such robots.The example environment chosen here is a volcano, in which long term measurements need to be made.Discussions with volcanologist Dr Emma Liu (UCL) have identified the potential for autonomous terrestrial robots to provide a platform for greatly improved volcano measurements in the field. The volcano is a dangerous environment, which makes it impractical for humans to conduct measurements, but also an environment which is difficult for wheeled robots to move in due to the special topology. Lastly, the use of UAVs is also only possible to a limited degree, as the measurements must be taken over a longer time frame. Because of this, this is a perfect scenario for legged climbing robots.While different legged robot systems exist, specifically for climbing in extreme environment, they are complex and expensive to manufacture, and as such are yet to be used in related real-world environments. By creating a soft legged robot, the cost of a single robot can be drastically reduced, due to cheaper materials such as silicone as well as through the reduced of use of sensors and computational power thanks to the embodied intelligence of soft robots.