EFRI C3 SoRo: Design Principles for Soft Robots Based on Boundary Constrained Granular Swarms

EFRI C3 SoRo：基于边界约束粒群的软体机器人设计原理

• 批准号: 1830939
• 负责人: Matthew Spenko
• 金额: $ 200万
• 依托单位: Illinois Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-15 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1830939&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EFRI; C3; SoRo; Design; Principles

This project will develop the framework to understand the modeling, sensing, control, design, and fabrication of a new class of soft robots. Most soft robots eschew the rigid links of traditional robots in favor of compliant structures. In contrast, the robot designed in this work has its "softness" emerge from the interactions among granular material encased in a flexible membrane. The concept is best visualized by considering an amoeba, in which an outer membrane loosely encapsulates a set of internal components. By allowing components on the periphery of the membrane to be active "sub-robots," much like the cilia on the periphery of a paramecium, the overall structure can move and deform like a boundary-constrained robotic swarm. Moreover, to manipulate objects and exert large forces on the environment, the robot will also have the unique ability to jam. Jamming occurs when particles become packed so closely that instead of flowing past each other (like coffee grounds in a can) they form a solid (like coffee grounds in a vacuum-packed bag). The results of this work may offer several advantages over traditional robots, including the ability to better conform to objects, physically interact with other soft structures such as animal tissue, and locomote in unstructured environments. This could impact several national needs, including providing inherently safe robots that work with or alongside humans to greatly improve US manufacturing competitiveness. The research also includes a comprehensive broadening participation plan with an emphasis on hiring underrepresented minorities as graduate research assistants and outreach to underrepresented minorities through a Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. This is coupled with societal outreach that builds upon the PI's previous involvement with the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.The robot developed here will be the first to expand upon the concept of granular soft robots by imagining the granules themselves as active robots. While similar to robotic swarms, this new class of robots differs significantly in that this project will be the first to examine how the aggregate of sub-robots physically interacts with its environment. To make this possible, novel modeling techniques will be created as well as sensing and actuation algorithms. Modeling will take into account both multi-body rigid dynamics for modeling the dynamics of sub-robot granules, large deformation continuum mechanics for modeling sub-robot connections, constraints to ensure the model predictions are physically viable, and Lagrangian mechanics to bring all the elements together. The sensing and actuation algorithms will exploit emergent intelligence of the boundary swarm to sense the external environment and robustly actuate distinct global behaviors in response to such distributed sensing without any centralized planning. The project enhances infrastructure through melding concepts and researchers from multiple disparate disciplines. In engineering, this includes dynamics and control, mechanics of materials and structures, materials engineering, and formal design theory. In physics, it encompasses areas of soft condensed matter, in particular the concepts of the jamming phase transition and the dynamics of "active matter."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.

该项目将开发一个框架来理解新型软机器人的建模、传感、控制、设计和制造。 大多数软机器人避开传统机器人的刚性连杆，转而采用顺应结构。 相比之下，这项工作中设计的机器人的“柔软性”来自于柔性膜中包裹的颗粒材料之间的相互作用。这个概念最好通过变形虫来形象化，其中的外膜松散地封装了一组内部组件。 通过允许膜外围的组件成为活跃的“子机器人”，就像草履虫外围的纤毛一样，整体结构可以像边界约束的机器人群一样移动和变形。此外，为了操纵物体并对环境施加很大的力，机器人还将具有独特的干扰能力。当颗粒堆积得如此紧密以至于它们不是相互流过（就像罐中的咖啡渣）而是形成固体（就像真空包装袋中的咖啡渣）时，就会发生堵塞。 这项工作的结果可能比传统机器人具有多种优势，包括能够更好地适应物体、与动物组织等其他软结构进行物理交互，以及在非结构化环境中移动。 这可能会影响多个国家的需求，包括提供本质安全的机器人，与人类一起工作或并肩工作，以大大提高美国制造业的竞争力。该研究还包括一项全面的扩大参与计划，重点是聘用代表性不足的少数群体作为研究生研究助理，并通过本科生研究经验计划向代表性不足的少数群体进行推广。这与 PI 之前参与芝加哥科学与工业博物馆的社会推广相结合。这里开发的机器人将是第一个通过将颗粒本身想象为主动机器人来扩展颗粒软机器人概念的机器人。虽然与机器人群类似，但这种新型机器人的显着不同之处在于，该项目将是第一个检查子机器人的集合如何与其环境进行物理交互的项目。为了实现这一点，将创建新颖的建模技术以及传感和驱动算法。建模将考虑用于对子机器人颗粒动力学进行建模的多体刚性动力学、用于对子机器人连接进行建模的大变形连续介质力学、确保模型预测在物理上可行的约束以及用于引入所有元素的拉格朗日力学一起。传感和驱动算法将利用边界群的新兴智能来感知外部环境，并在没有任何集中规划的情况下响应这种分布式传感而鲁棒地驱动不同的全局行为。该项目通过融合多个不同学科的概念和研究人员来增强基础设施。在工程学中，这包括动力学和控制、材料和结构力学、材料工程和形式设计理论。在物理学中，它涵盖了软凝聚态物质领域，特别是干扰相变和“活性物质”动力学的概念。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。

项目成果

A Self-Reconfigurable Variable-Stiffness Soft Robot Based on Boundary-Constrained Modular Units

基于边界约束模块化单元的自重构变刚度软体机器人

• DOI: 10.1109/tro.2021.3106830
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: IEEE Transactions on Robotics
• 影响因子: 7.8
• 作者: Karimi, Mohammad Amin;Alizadehyazdi, Vahid;Jaeger, Heinrich M.;Spenko, Matthew
• 通讯作者: Spenko, Matthew

A Boundary-Constrained Swarm Robot with Granular Jamming

具有颗粒干扰的边界约束群体机器人

• DOI: 10.1109/robosoft48309.2020.9115996
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: 2020 3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft
• 作者: Karimi, Mohammad Amin;Alizadehyazdi, Vahid;Busque, Bruno-Pier;Jaeger, Heinrich M.;Spenko, Matthew
• 通讯作者: Spenko, Matthew

Using R-Functions to Control the Shape of Soft Robots

• DOI: 10.1109/lra.2022.3188894
• 发表时间: 2022-10
• 期刊: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
• 影响因子: 5.2
• 作者: Declan Mulroy;Esteban López;M. Spenko;Ankit Srivastava

Learning to control active matter

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevresearch.3.033291
• 发表时间: 2021-09-30
• 期刊: PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH
• 影响因子: 4.2
• 作者: Falk, Martin J.;Alizadehyazdi, Vahid;Murugan, Arvind
• 通讯作者: Murugan, Arvind

Cable-Driven Jamming of a Boundary Constrained Soft Robot

• DOI: 10.1109/robosoft48309.2020.9116042
• 发表时间: 2020-05
• 期刊: 2020 3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft)
• 作者: Koki Tanaka;Mohammad Amin Karimi;Bruno-Pier Busque;Declan Mulroy;Qiyuan Zhou;R. Batra;A. Srivastava;H. Jaeger;M. Spenko