Theoretical and Methodological Foundations for the Design and Implementation of Effective Soft Robots

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The emergence of "soft" robots, whose bodies are made from stretchable and compliant materials, has fundamentally changed the way robotic systems are designed and constructed. Despite societal need for safe, collaborative robotic devices and a proliferation of promising design concepts, soft robots are not yet present in the human-collaborative and human-interactive applications where they might be most useful. The research objective of this proposal is to discover methodologies and principles that solve fundamental problems responsible for the gap between promise and implementation in soft robotics. The proposed research will use a hybrid approach combining continuum mechanics, machine learning, and novel shape measurement techniques to answer open research questions about design and control of soft robots with a variety of architectures deployed in a variety of environments. Soft robots are particularly difficult to design and implement because fundamental understanding of their behaviour does not yet exist. For instance, soft robots have continuously deformable bodies that cannot be modelled with a traditional approach based on rigid-body kinematics. In the short term, this research program will investigate the behaviour of the soft, stretchable and compliant materials and structures that make up the bodies of soft robots. It will follow four objectives: to measure the surface morphology of soft robots, to model soft robot stress relaxation, creep and hysteresis, develop hybridized modelling approaches that benefit from both physical principles and robot data, and investigate computational frameworks for jointly optimizing the design, sensing and control of soft robots. In the long term, the new principles and algorithms discovered in this program will form a methodological basis for resilient soft robots that perform safely and reliably in the real world. The tangible output of this research will be compact, resilient devices capable of sophisticated motions for manufacturing automation, assistive technology, haptics, minimally invasive surgery, and remote navigation of unstructured environments. The proposed research will develop Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) with "T-shaped" skill sets combining interdisciplinary breadth with particular areas of expertise. Members of this research program will become familiar with mechanical design, theoretical and computational mechanics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, physical experimentation, and other skills that are part of the context of robotics. Principles of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) will be central to the search for, selection of, and training of HQP. The findings of this program will form the basis of assistive and collaborative robotic devices that benefit Canadians while bolstering Canada's robotics industry. HQP emerging from this research program will have the expertise and leadership skills to innovate in academic and industrial settings across Canada.