CAREER: Acoustic Vortex Robots for Contactless 6-Degrees-of-Freedom Object Manipulation

职业：用于非接触式 6 自由度物体操纵的声学涡旋机器人

• 批准号: 2340016
• 负责人: Zhenhua Tian
• 金额: $ 64.99万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard 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=2340016&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Acoustic; Vortex; Robots; Contactless

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will fund research that enables robotic platforms to achieve contactless, high-resolution, 6-degrees-of-freedom (6-DOF) manipulation of nano-to-millimeter-sized objects, thereby prompting the progress of science. This project will support fundamental research to first develop new robotic end effectors, namely, contactless acoustic vortex end effectors, by understanding acoustic vortex-enabled object motions and finding solutions to control the motions. This project will develop acoustic vortex robots, which will leverage acoustic vortex end effectors integrated with robotic arms to enable contactless 6-DOF object manipulation with appealing features, including three-dimensional (3D) object rotation, 3D object translation, high translation accuracy (1.5 μm), wide translation range (200 mm), control of objects with different sizes and material properties, and noninvasive manipulation of objects shielded by barriers such as tissue and skull. This project will accelerate the development of future robotic technologies for biology and manufacturing applications such as handling delicate bioparticles for automated sorting and arranging single cells for bioprinting. Through education and outreach activities with the theme of acoustic object manipulation, this project will broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities, increase public engagement with science and technology, and provide learning and training opportunities for graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 students.This research aims to develop contactless acoustic vortex end effectors and acoustic vortex robots, by understanding acoustic vortex-vortex interaction and vortex-enabled object motions and addressing the questions of how to control the interaction and how to control the object motions. To achieve these objectives, the researchers will first establish theoretical models to study acoustic coaxial- and tri-vortex interactions, and numerical models to study the effects of coaxial- and tri-vortex on object motions. Based on the modeling results, coaxial vortex end effectors will be developed to trap an object and control its bidirectional rotation. Tri-vortex end effectors will then be developed to control the 3D rotation of the trapped object. End effectors based on micro-interdigital transducers will be developed to generate high-frequency, high-resolution acoustic vortex beams for manipulating micro/nano-objects. These end effectors will be integrated with robotic arms to develop acoustic vortex robots, and they will be validated through contactless object manipulation tests, such as arranging single cells for bioprinting, translating objects inside a biomimetic phantom, and rotating objects in regions shielded by tissue and skull barriers.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.

这项教师早期职业发展（职业）奖将资助研究，使机器人平台能够实现对纳米到千米尺寸物体的无接触式，高分辨率，6度（6级）的操纵，从而促进了科学的进步。该项目将支持基本研究，以首先开发新的机器人终端效应，即通过理解具有声学涡流的对象运动并找到控制运动的解决方案，即无接触式的声学涡流终端效果。 This project will develop acoustic vortex robots, which will leverage acoustic vortex end effectsors integrated with robotic arms to enable contactless 6-DOF object manipulation with appearance features, including three-dimensional (3D) object rotation, 3D object translation, high translation accuracy (1.5 μm), wide translation range (200 mm), control of objects with different sizes and material properties, and noninvasive manipulation of objects shielded通过组织和头骨等障碍。该项目将加速生物学和制造应用的未来机器人技术的开发，例如处理精致的生物粒子进行自动分类和布置单细胞进行生物打印。 Through education and outreach activities with the theme of acoustic object manipulation, this project will broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities, increase public engagement with science and technology, and provide learning and training opportunities for graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 students.This research aims to develop contactless acoustic vortex end effects and acoustic vortex robots, by understanding acoustic vortex-vortex interaction and vortex-enabled object motions and解决如何控制交互的问题以及如何控制对象运动。为了实现这些目标，研究人员将首先建立理论模型来研究声学同轴和三涡流相互作用，以及研究同轴和三涡流对物体运动的影响的数值模型。基于建模结果，将开发同轴涡流端效应以捕获对象并控制其双向旋转。然后将开发三涡流末端效应以控制被困对象的3D旋转。将开发基于微插值传感器的最终效应，以生成用于操纵微型/纳米对象的高频，高分辨率的声学涡流束。这些最终效果将与机器人臂集成以开发声学涡流机器人，并将通过无接触式的物体操纵测试来验证它们，例如用于生物启动的单个单元，在生物模拟幻象内翻译物体，在生物含量的幻象内翻译物体，并在型号的区域内旋转物体，并通过组织和骷髅屏幕屏蔽。更广泛的影响审查标准。