CAREER: Modeling Soil-Machine Interaction for Advances in Civil Construction and Terrestrial Robotics

该学院早期职业发展计划（Career）奖将研究机器与土壤相互作用的物理过程，并开发理论模型，为未来用于建筑、采矿、农业和交通的自主设备的设计奠定基础。人类在民用建筑、采矿和农业中大规模地移动、操纵和互动土壤，使用的机器主要是通过试验和错误设计和制造的，没有对土壤在不同负载条件下的反应的基本知识。机电一体化和机器人技术的进步可以彻底改变这些机器的设计。由于现有的模拟和设计技术主要是针对在坚硬表面上运行的设备，因此回答这个问题和其他问题的主要障碍是缺乏预测机器如何在可变形地形上运行的方法。该项目将收集数据，并启动一个专门针对土壤-机器相互作用（SMI）的综合研究和教育计划，该计划最终将检查各种机器配置和土壤类型。该项目的广泛影响将通过刺激建筑、采矿、农业和移动设备的技术进步，塑造一个新兴的跨学科领域。通过综合的教育目标，该项目还将通过包容性的外展和教育活动吸引、激发和教育多样化的未来土木工程师群体，让所有年龄段的学习者参与其中，从幼儿开始。该项目将结合基础土力学的实验和理论，以获得预测力和反应的演变模型，当机器与土壤接触时，会引起大的、永久的（塑性）变形。重要的新颖之处在于在大范围可能的运动中，考虑到两种基本的土壤类型，并使用西北大学土壤-机器相互作用实验室的6轴机械臂进行驱动，完成了力-位移历史和变形场的完整实验表征。为了克服现有数值方法的高计算需求，本项目将制定一种基于顺序运动学方法的高效仿真技术，该方法利用简化的运动学和基于优化的求解方案，显著减少计算时间。由于通过实验或数值模拟获得的力-位移历史仅适用于单一运动或载荷路径，因此本项目追求的一个重大突破是制定能够预测任意运动和载荷条件下的力-位移历史的半解析框架。教育和社会影响将通过持续的推广、本科生和研究生的培训、与行业的互动，以及在各种平台上的国际传播结果，包括用行业合作者建议的架构编写的开源软件，来最大化。通过与芝加哥儿童博物馆和芝加哥制造商博览会的合作，该项目旨在激发人们对工程和SMI的兴趣。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award will investigate the physical processes through which machines interact with soils, and develop theoretical models that will underpin the design of future, autonomous devices used for construction, mining, agriculture, and mobility. Humans move, manipulate, and interact with soil on a massive scale for civil construction, mining, and agriculture using machines that have been designed and built primarily through trial and error, without fundamental knowledge of how soils respond under different loading conditions. Advances in mechatronics and robotics can revolutionize the design of these machines. Since existing techniques for simulation and design are largely for devices operating on hard surfaces, a major impediment to answering this question and others is the lack of methods to predict how machines operate on deformable terrain. This project will collect data and launch an integrated research and educational program dedicated specifically to Soil-Machine Interaction (SMI), one that ultimately will examine a wide variety of machine configurations and soil types. The broader impacts of this project will shape an emerging, interdisciplinary field by stimulating technological advances in the devices used for construction, mining, agriculture, and mobility. Through integrated educational aims, the project will also attract, excite and educate a diverse group of future civil engineers through inclusive outreach and educational activities that engage learners of all ages, from early childhood onward.This project will integrate experiments and theory based on fundamental soil mechanics to obtain models for predicting the evolution of forces and reactions as machines come into contact with soils to induce large, permanent (plastic) deformations. Significant novelty lies in the complete experimental characterization of force-displacement histories and deformation fields over a wide range of possible motions, considering two fundamental soil types and using the 6-axis robotic arm in the Soil-Machine Interaction Laboratory at Northwestern University for actuation. To overcome the high computational demands of existing numerical methods, the project will formulate an efficient simulation technique based on the Sequential Kinematic Method, an approach that utilizes simplified kinematics and an optimization-based solution scheme to decrease computation times significantly. Since force-displacement histories obtained experimentally or through numerical simulation are applicable only to a single motion or load path, a significant breakthrough pursued in this project is the formulation of a semi-analytical framework capable of predicting force-displacement histories under arbitrary motions and loading conditions. Educational and societal impact will be maximized through sustained outreach, training of undergraduate and graduate students, interaction with industry, and dissemination of results internationally across various platforms, including open-source software written in an architecture advised by industry collaborators. Through collaboration with the Chicago Children's Museum and Chicagoland maker fairs, the project aims to stimulate interest in engineering and SMI across a wide range of demographics.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.