CAREER: Designing Autonomous Battery-Free Robotic Sensors

职业：设计自主无电池机器人传感器

• 批准号: 2338736
• 负责人: Vikram Iyer
• 金额: $ 60万
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-04-01 至 2029-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2338736&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Designing; Autonomous; Battery; Free

Miniaturized robotic sensors have transformative potential for numerous applications. Unlike fixed Internet of Things sensors designed to take measurements in a specific location, a robot can move to sample different locations. Such robots have potential to perform infrastructure inspection on roadways, bridges, and railroads, track inventory on warehouse shelves, measure environmental conditions on farms, take measurements in industrial scenarios with toxic chemicals or strong electromagnetic fields, or even be used in space exploration. Robotic sensors could also move to seek out sources of fires or gas leaks. A core component of traditional robots is a battery that provides power and energy. Batteries however limit the time and range at which a robot can operate in remote environments. Batteries are also difficult to miniaturize for small microrobots, and battery manufacturing and disposal also have significant environmental impacts due to the use of toxic and scarce critical materials. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) research seeks to develop a new class of maintenance-free robotic sensors powered by energy harvested from sources like light using solar cells or from radio transmitters. The key enabling idea is to operate these robots in discrete steps which enables motion with small amounts of harvested energy, but achieving this requires redesigning robot mechanisms, circuits, and control algorithms. This interdisciplinary research will establish fundamental techniques for designing battery-free robots ranging from mechanical components and circuits to control software. By redesigning conventional robot sub-systems for compatibility with energy harvesting this research will contribute to the following: 1) strategies to discretize robot motion co-optimized with electronic and structural energy storage and investigate how these methods scale versus robot size; 2) methods to power robots with novel energy harvesting approaches and optimizing power management algorithms for robot motion. 3) perception capabilities for battery-free robots such as onboard vision or odor classification and explore wirelessly connected multi-robot architectures; 4) explore AI based tools and workflows for robot and embedded system design, code generation, power optimization, and debugging; 5) Develop control systems compatible with intermittent motion. This research will also be closely coupled to educational experiences for undergraduates and K-12 students through a programmable robot prototyping platform for algorithm development and education. Undergraduate researchers will help develop the robot platform and outreach activities will be conducted in partnership with nonprofit educational organizations such as A Vision for Electronic Literacy and Access.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.

微型机器人传感器具有许多应用的变化潜力。与固定的事物互联网传感器不同，旨在在特定位置进行测量的传感器不同，机器人可以移动到采样不同的位置。这样的机器人有可能在道路，桥梁和铁路上进行基础设施检查，仓库货架上的田径清单，测量农场的环境条件，在工业场景中使用有毒化学物质或强大的电磁场进行测量，甚至用于太空探索。机器人传感器还可以移动以寻找火灾或气体泄漏的来源。传统机器人的核心组成部分是提供功率和能量的电池。但是，电池限制了机器人可以在远程环境中运行的时间和范围。对于小型微型机器人来说，电池也很难小型化，并且由于使用有毒和稀缺的关键材料，电池制造和处置也会产生重大的环境影响。这项教师的早期职业发展（职业）研究旨在开发一类新的无维护机器人传感器，该传感器由使用太阳能电池或无线电发射机等光源等能量提供动力。关键的想法是通过离散步骤操作这些机器人，这可以使少量收获的能量运动，但是实现这一目标需要重新设计机器人机制，电路和控制算法。这项跨学科研究将建立基本技术，用于设计无电池机器人，从机械组件和电路到控制软件。通过重新设计传统的机器人子系统以兼容与能源收获的兼容，这项研究将有助于以下内容：1）与电子和结构能量存储合作地离散机器人运动的策略，并研究这些方法的规模与机器人大小如何； 2）使用新颖的能源收集方法和优化机器人运动的功率管理算法的方法。 3）无电池机器人的感知功能，例如机载视觉或气味分类，并探索无线连接的多机器人体系结构； 4）探索机器人和嵌入式系统设计，代码生成，功率优化和调试的基于AI的工具和工作流； 5）开发控制系统与间歇性运动兼容。这项研究还将通过可编程的机器人原型制作平台，用于算法开发和教育，与本科生和K-12学生的教育经验紧密相结合。本科研究人员将帮助开发机器人平台，并将与非营利性教育组织合作进行外展活动，例如电子素养和访问愿景。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的审查标准来通过评估来通过评估来支持的。