NRI/Collaborative Research: Improving the Safety and Agility of Robotic Flight with Bat-Inspired Flexible-Winged Robots

NRI/合作研究：利用蝙蝠启发的柔性翼机器人提高机器人飞行的安全性和敏捷性

• 批准号: 1426338
• 负责人: Kenneth Breuer
• 金额: $ 70万
• 依托单位: Brown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1426338&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NRI; Collaborative; Research; Improving; Safety

Bat flight, perhaps the most advanced and efficient form of animal flight, has long been a source of inspiration for roboticists and biologists alike. This National Robotics Initiative (NRI) collaborative research award supports research aimed at understanding and reproducing the unparalleled agility and resilience of bat flight. Biological studies of bats (their structure, muscle movement, and flight dynamics) will drive the engineering development of mathematical models of robotic flight and the eventual design and implementation of a prototype 30-80cm bat-like robot. The physical flight capabilities of the robot will be augmented with perception and reasoning abilities, with the aim of providing support for construction site activities such as site monitoring, inspection, and general surveillance of the work site to provide image data to enhance situational awareness of human workers. The research involves several disciplines, including biology, aerodynamics, robotics, control systems engineering, and construction engineering.Aerial robots have nowhere near the agility and efficiency of animal flight, especially in complex, constrained environments. This is not surprising since even the simplest winged robots have complex flight dynamics that pose significant challenges for modeling, design, and control. In the case of bat-inspired robots, these difficulties are exacerbated by the use of under-actuated mechanisms driving wings constructed from flexible membranes. This project will combine biological and engineering research to address these problems. Biological research on the kinematics of bats and their flight will provide a basis for mechanical designs. To control the robot, agile motion planning and flight control algorithms will employ motion primitives that are derived from biological investigation of the dynamics of bat flight. Conversely, models obtained from biological studies will be validated by experimental investigations using the prototype robot, enabling iterative refinement of reduced-order models and control algorithms. Ultimately, the robots will be equipped with sensing systems and planning algorithms, to facilitate localization, mapping, inspection and surveillance at construction sites.

蝙蝠的飞行可能是动物飞行的最先进，最有效的形式，长期以来一直是机器人和生物学家的灵感来源。这项国家机器人倡议（NRI）合作研究奖支持旨在理解和复制蝙蝠飞行无与伦比的敏捷性和弹性的研究。蝙蝠（其结构，肌肉运动和飞行动力学）的生物学研究将推动机器人飞行数学模型的工程开发以及30-80cm蝙蝠般的机器人的最终设计和实施。 机器人的物理飞行能力将通过感知和推理能力增强，目的是为建筑工地活动提供支持，例如对现场监测，检查和对工作现场的一般监视，以提供图像数据，以增强人类工人的情境认识。这项研究涉及几个学科，包括生物学，空气动力学，机器人技术，控制系统工程和建筑工程。机器人的敏捷性和效率与动物飞行的敏捷性和效率无关，尤其是在复杂的，受约束的环境中。这并不奇怪，因为即使是最简单的机器人也具有复杂的飞行动力学，对建模，设计和控制构成了重大挑战。在受BAT启发的机器人的情况下，通过使用驱动柔性膜构成的机翼的驱动机制，这些困难加剧了这些困难。该项目将结合生物学和工程研究以解决这些问题。关于蝙蝠运动学及其飞行的生物学研究将为机械设计提供基础。为了控制机器人，敏捷的运动计划和飞行控制算法将采用运动原始剂，这些动作原始源来自对蝙蝠飞行动力学的生物学研究。相反，将通过使用原型机器人进行实验研究来验证从生物学研究中获得的模型，从而可以迭代地改进减少阶模型和对照算法。 最终，机器人将配备传感系统和计划算法，以促进建筑工地的本地化，映射，检查和监视。