EFRI C3 SoRo: Muscle-like Cellular Architectures and Compliant, Distributed Sensing and Control for Soft Robots

该项目将创建一个系统的和可扩展的方法来设计和建造软机器人。与传统的刚性机器人相比，柔性机器人具有许多潜在的优势，例如能够与人及其周围环境安全地互动。该项目将通过探索受自然肌肉启发的模块化配置来加速实用软机器人的部署。肌肉结构可以实现非凡的技巧和操作，即使在没有刚性骨架的情况下，大象的鼻子，头足类动物的触角和哺乳动物的舌头都是突出的例子。生物肌肉通过数百到数千个单独的致动单元和多个传感通道进行操作。本研究将从生物肌肉的结构中获得灵感，构建灵巧，灵活和高度可控的致动器，并将分布式传感，计算和通信集成在一起。该项目从生物学中汲取灵感，用于研究和开发模块化和分层排列的新型软机器人。将开发柔软的肌肉细胞样单元，可以以一系列尺寸廉价制造，并实现连续生产定制的顺应性和连续性机器人结构。将探索利用简单的线性致动器来产生复杂的空间变形的方法。将评估在整个软结构中实施被动加强元件（例如纤维）以相对于可由软结构和致动器单独产生的输出运动和刚度来改善输出运动和刚度。该研究小组还将通过开发基于电场和磁场的传感器来研究这些系统的传感、电源和控制，这些传感器可以减少对广泛布线的需求。最后，研究小组将研究柔软的肌肉状结构的建模和控制，以便有效地规划和执行机械复杂的操纵和运动任务。所提出的软机器人无线供电、传感和控制的新方法有可能广泛适用于许多软机器人架构，并改变该领域常用的方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为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来支持。

This project will create a systematic and scalable approach to the design and construction of soft robots. Soft robots have many potential advantages over traditional rigid robots, such as being able to interact safely with people and their surroundings. This project will accelerate the deployment of practical soft robots by exploring modular configurations inspired by natural muscles. Muscular structures can achieve extraordinary feats of dexterity and manipulation even in the absence of a rigid skeleton, with elephant trunks, cephalopod tentacles, and mammalian tongues as prominent examples. Biological muscles operate with hundreds to thousands of individual actuating units and multiple channels for sensing. This research will take inspiration from the structure of biological muscle to construct dexterous, flexible and highly controllable actuators, with distributed sensing, computation, and communication integrated throughout. This project draws inspiration from biology for the investigation and development of a new class of soft robots that are modular and hierarchically arranged. Soft, muscle-cell-like units will be developed that can be inexpensively fabricated at a range of sizes, and implemented en masse to produce customized compliant and continuum robotic structures. Methods will be explored to utilize simple linear actuators to produce complex spatial deformation. Implementation of passive stiffening elements, such as fibers, throughout the soft structures will be evaluated for improving output motion and stiffness relative to what can be produced by the soft structure and actuators alone. The research team will also investigate sensing, power, and control of these systems through the development of electric and magnetic field-based sensors that obviate the need for extensive wiring. Finally, the research team will investigate the modeling and control of the soft, muscle-like structures in order to enable effective planning and execution of mechanically complex manipulation and locomotion tasks. The proposed new approaches for wireless power, sensing, and control of soft robots have the potential to be broadly applicable to many soft robotic architectures and to change the approaches commonly utilized in the field.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.