Multi-modal modularity of mobile robots

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Compared to human beings and animals, robots have major handicaps in terms of mobility and manipulability. Nature has provided and adapted much of this capability to various environments terrestrial, water, and air). The proposed work aims to significantly improve the technology of robot mobility and manipulability in naturally unstructured and dynamically changing terrestrial environments. Interaction between the mobile platform, with an arm mounted on it, and the environment is a key factor in platform mobility over unstructured terrains and arm manipulability of unknown objects in the same environment. The proposed work is focused on a new design paradigm of mobile robots. The hypothesis is that mobility (of the platform) over unstructured terrains, and manipulability of unknown objects (with the arm mounted on the mobile platform) can be enhanced by providing multi-modal modularity of platform traction and manipulation, as well as suspension, compliance, and back-drivability. Multi-modal modularity is the concept of fusing several modular means of operation. In the platform case, wheels, tracks, and bracing arms, each being a module, will be integrated on the same platform to allow inter-changeability (multi-modality) in order to adapt the platform traction to various terrains. The platform traction will also include a novel suspension mechanism with compliance and back-drivability to lower the impact of platform's contact with the environment. Both, compliance and back-drivability can be provided as passive or active features. The same approach will be used for the arm manipulability. In the proposed work the system concept will developed first, and then designed and implemented on a commercial robot. Extensive experiments will be performed with the prototype to gather data that would support, or not, the original hypothesis.