CAREER: Fluid-Structure-Control Interactions in Bioinspired Robots with Actively Morphing Fins

这一学院早期职业发展计划(CALEAR)项目将从科学、经济和安全的角度为国家利益提供支持，支持配备主动变形鳍的仿生水下机器人的基础研究。这项研究工作的灵感来自海洋生物，它们不断改变鳍的形状和硬度，以实现不同游泳方式的最佳能量优势。本项目将研究主动鳍刚度和形状控制在增强水下推进中的基础作用。了解这种新的游泳模式将使机器人车辆能够高效地操作，使任务能够延长持续时间和自主性。因此，这些新知识将使下一代水下机器人得以开发，用于水体的科学勘探和生态保护、水下资源勘探和测绘，以及出于防御目的的监视或隐形行动。通过综合研究和教育计划，该项目将对研究生和本科生产生积极影响，并将支持内华达州及其他州的K-12 STEM教育，重点是扩大未被充分代表的学生对工程的参与。该职业项目的研究目标是建立非稳定流体-结构-控制相互作用的生物灵感框架，该框架将解决动力系统中的基本科学问题，并使软机器人水下推进的工程范式发生转变。这项研究将通过自感知和反馈控制协同利用结构和流体的非线性，有助于对变形主动柔性结构与周围流体环境的复杂相互作用有新的理解。将制定和实施通过嵌入人造鳍的智能材料进行自我感知和控制的模型。通过基于图像的运动分析和流动诊断，对系统耦合动力学进行了理论研究和实验表征。建模、模拟和实验将被转化为机器人平台，以研究生物启发的运动，并测试关于主动变形有效性的假设。该项目将通过研究由非线性水动力作用引起的控制不稳定性和复杂结构共振来推进具有时间周期系数的非线性系统的理论。它将阐明利用旋涡脱落进行流动控制的潜力，以及它与水动力调节和功率耗散的关系。此外，该项目将通过利用主动刚度和形状变形的变革性概念来推进当前水下机器人推进的最先进水平。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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) project will benefit the national interests from a scientific, economic, and security perspective by supporting fundamental research on bioinspired underwater robots equipped with actively morphing fins. The research work is inspired by marine creatures that continuously change their fins' shape and stiffness to achieve optimal energy advantage for different swimming regimes. This project will study the fundamental role of active fin stiffness and shape control for the purpose of enhanced underwater propulsion. Understanding this novel swimming paradigm will allow for robotic vehicles with highly efficient operation, enabling missions with extended duration and autonomy. As a result, the new knowledge will enable the development of next generation underwater robots for scientific exploration and ecological conservation of water bodies, underwater resource prospecting and mapping, and surveillance or stealth operations for defense purposes. Through an integrated research and education plan, this project will positively impact graduate and undergraduate students and will support K-12 STEM education in the state of Nevada and beyond, with emphasis to broadening participation of underrepresented students in engineering.The research objective of this CAREER project is to establish the bioinspired framework of unsteady fluid-structure-control interactions which will address fundamental scientific questions in dynamical systems and enable an engineering paradigm shift in soft robotic underwater propulsion. This research will contribute new understanding of the complex interplay of morphing active flexible structures and the surrounding fluid environment by synergistically leveraging structural and fluid nonlinearities via self-sensing and feedback control. Models for self-sensing and control via smart materials embedded in artificial fins will be formulated and implemented. The system coupled dynamics will be studied theoretically and experimentally characterized via image-based motion analysis and flow diagnostics. Modeling, simulations, and experiments will be translated into robotic platforms to study bioinspired locomotion and test hypotheses on the effectiveness of active morphing. This project will advance the theory of nonlinear systems with time-periodic coefficients, by investigating control-induced instabilities and complex structural resonances mediated by nonlinear hydrodynamic actions. It will elucidate the potential of harnessing vortex shedding for flow control and its relation to modulation of hydrodynamic forces and power dissipation. Furthermore, this project will advance the current state-of-the-art in underwater robotic propulsion, by exploiting the transformative concept of active stiffness and shape morphing.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.