Adaptive Mechanical Systems for Physical Embodied Intelligence Robotics

在过去的几年里，机器人技术在人类社会中取得了显著的突破。机器人正在火星上收集数据，将食物送到你的酒店房间或医院的药品，探索海洋，并制造看似无穷无尽的产品。与机器人技术紧密相连的工业4.0和人工智能（AI）是无数报纸文章的焦点，也是许多公共政策的主题。然而，现代机器人系统的机械设计往往被忽视，设计师通常依赖于复杂的控制策略（包括人工智能）以及复杂的传感器和执行器阵列。这个应用程序认为，这种方法往往是不完整的，因为它忽略了这样一个事实，即机械系统也可以解决自己的问题。最聪明的人工智能如果没有类似的智能机械体现，可以说只不过是一个罐子里的大脑。在这项研究计划中，机械系统将被设计为补充人工智能或类似的高级控制系统与物理体现的智能对应物。该计划源于申请人在开发机械形状改变装置方面的早期努力，并提出将所发现的原理沿着三个主要研究方向沿着扩展到令人兴奋的应用：可变刚度机器人手、自适应机械步行机、被动形状变形翼。第一个研究重点是自适应机器人手指，甚至比平常“更多”欠驱动。申请人和他的小组已经设计了完全被动的新型机器人手指：这些手指的变形和它们产生的力是对物体上的接触做出反应而产生的，并且通过手指的设计参数来仔细控制。在这个应用程序中，并遵循这些原型的实际实验，我们建议开发可变刚度版本的手指，其中一个可以从一个非常柔软和温柔的夹持器切换到一个刚性和精确的一个通过改变其运动结构。第二个研究重点涉及机器人学中另一个令人感兴趣的肢体，即腿。在最近的工作中，展示了一种自适应机器人腿，它可以通过改变其运动学来对与障碍物的意外碰撞做出反应，并产生克服该障碍物的运动。在这个应用中，我们建议创建一个完整的机械智能步行机器人。最后，最后的研究推力应用的经验教训，从以前的作品变形机翼。我们建议研究一种机械方案，其中机翼的形状变化至少部分由气动力引起。该计划将对人工智能控制的机器人系统的开发以及活跃在移动的机器人技术，自主操纵和航空航天领域的加拿大公司产生巨大影响，通过提供具有真正机电智能的高效机器人解决方案，即机械和电子体现。

In the last few years, robotics has achieved a remarkable breakthrough in human society. Robots are collecting data on Mars, delivering food to your hotel room or medicine in hospitals, exploring the oceans, and manufacturing a seemingly endless range of products. Tightly connected to robotics, Industry 4.0 and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the focus of innumerable newspaper articles and the topic of many public policies. Yet, the mechanical design of modern robotic systems is often neglected and designers typically rely on complex control strategies (including AI) as well as sophisticated arrays of sensors and actuators. This application argues that this approach is often incomplete in the sense that it ignores the fact that mechanical systems can also solve problems by themselves. The smartest AI without a similarly smart mechanical embodiment is arguably nothing more than a brain in jar. In this research program, mechanical systems will be designed that complement AI or similarly high-level control systems with a physical embodied intelligence counterpart. The program stems from the applicant's earlier efforts in developing mechanically shape changing devices, and proposes to extend the discovered principles to exciting applications along three main research thrusts: variable stiffness robotic hands, adaptive mechanical walking machines, passive shape morphing wings. The first research thrust focuses on self-adaptive robotic fingers that are even "more" underactuated than usual. The applicant and his group have designed novel robotic fingers which are completely passive: the deformation of these fingers and the forces they produce are generated in reaction to contacts on objects and carefully controlled with the design parameters of the fingers. In this application and following the practical experimentation of these prototypes, we are proposing to develop variable stiffness versions of the fingers where one can switch from a very soft and gentle gripper to a stiff and precise one by varying its kinematic structure. The second research thrust deals with another limb of interest in robotics, namely the leg. In recent works, a self-adaptive robotic leg was demonstrated that could react to an unintended collision with an obstacle by changing its kinematics and produce a motion overcoming that obstacle. In this application, we propose to create a complete mechanically intelligent walking robot. Finally, the last research thrust applies lessons from the previous works to morphing wings. We propose to investigate a mechanical scheme where the shape changing of the wing is at least partially caused by aerodynamic forces. This program will have vast implications for the development of AI controlled robotic systems and for Canadian companies active in mobile robotics, autonomous manipulation, and aerospace by providing efficient robotic solutions with a true mechatronic intelligence, i.e. embodied both mechanically and electronically.