Morphological flexibility in robotic systems through physical polygon meshing

Belke, Christoph H.; Holdcroft, Kevin; Sigrist, Alexander; Paik, Jamie

doi:10.1038/s42256-023-00676-8

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The last modular robot system we want to discuss is the origami robot Mori [80], which has recently been developed further into the Mori3 system [81]. Mori consists of triangular modules that connect and pivot along their edges, thus enabling the robot to fold from a flat geometry into a 3D structure.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This upgrade enables the robot to form continuous three-dimensional surfaces that can change their curvature by changing the geometry of the constituent modules. In their most recent work [81], the authors demonstrated the capabilities of their robot system by showcasing diverse tasks, including user interaction, locomotion, and object manipulation. The system architecture of Mori to represent complex surfaces in 3D has great potential, but at the same time limits the viability of harnessing volume scaling effects to increase the force output of the system.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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PARTS—A 2D Self-Reconfigurable Programmable Mechanical Structure

Gerbl,

Pieber,

Ulrich

et al. 2024

Robotics

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Modular self-reconfigurable robots hold the promise of being capable of performing a wide variety of tasks. However, many systems fall short of either delivering this promised functionality due to constraints in system architecture or validating it on functional hardware prototypes. This paper demonstrates the functional capabilities of the Planar Adaptive Robot with Triangular Structure (PARTS) and documents the versatility of this robot system using a holistic approach that combines simulations and hardware demonstrations on a prototype with nine fabricated modules. PARTS is a two-dimensional modular robot consisting of modules with a shape-shifting triangular geometry capable of forming adaptable space-covering structures. Meta-modules and mesh restructuring techniques are presented as methods for achieving topological self-reconfiguration. The feasibility of these methods is demonstrated by applying them on a simulated reconfiguration example of 62 modules. The paper showcases the versatility of PARTS on the hardware prototype using task-specific configurations, including locomotion using a meta-module and a walker configuration, module-module interaction by establishing a bridge between two separated module clusters, and interaction with the environment using a gripper and supporting structure configuration. The results validate the versatility and emphasize the potential of the system’s design concept, motivating the transfer of the hardware architecture to the third dimension.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

PARTS—A 2D Self-Reconfigurable Programmable Mechanical Structure

Gerbl,

Pieber,

Ulrich

et al. 2024

Robotics

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show abstract

“…At this time, the fault-tolerant methods for fixed-configuration robots mentioned earlier will be useless.Modular self-reconfigurable robots change their configuration by adjusting the connection relationships between modules. [8,9] Compared with fixed-configuration robots, self-reconfiguration is the basis for further improving the fault tolerance of modular robots. Modular robots improve system robustness by replacing faulty modules due to their self-repair capabilities.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Fault‐Tolerant Approach for Modular Robots through Self‐Reconfiguration

Qi,

Lai,

Yang

et al. 2024

Advanced Intelligent Systems

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Modular robots have unique advantages in handling faults and improving their robustness due to their self‐reconfiguration capacity and homogeneous interchangeability. When locked joint failure occurs in modular robots, the distribution of the failed modules will affect the manipulation capacity of the robot. In this article, a novel self‐reconfiguration method that utilizes only the remaining resources available to mitigate the damage caused by module joint failures is proposed. The key node configuration is searched by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, and then the collision‐free reconfiguration path is planned by the rapidly exploring random trees (RRT) algorithm. The proposed method not only handles single‐module lockup failure but can also be expanded to multi‐module lockup failures, fully improving the fault tolerance of the modular robot. The method is deployed on the hardware, and the feasibility of the algorithm is verified by self‐reconfiguration experiments containing faulty modules.

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Multimodal locomotion ultra-thin soft robots for exploration of narrow spaces

Wang,

Li,

Chang

et al. 2024

Nat Commun

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From power plants on land to bridges over the sea, safety-critical built environments require periodic inspections for detecting issues to avoid functional discontinuities of these installations. However, navigation paths in these environments are usually challenging as they often contain difficult-to-access spaces (near-millimetre and submillimetre-high gaps) and multiple domains (solid, liquid and even aerial). In this paper, we address these challenges by developing a class of Thin Soft Robots (TS-Robot: thickness, 1.7 mm) that can access narrow spaces and perform cross-domain multimodal locomotion. We adopted a dual-actuation sandwich structure with a tuneable Poisson’s ratio tensioning mechanism for developing the TS-Robots driven by dielectric elastomers, providing them with two types of gaits (linear and undulating), remarkable output force ( ~ 41 times their weight) and speed (1.16 times Body Length/s and 13.06 times Body Thickness/s). Here, we demonstrated that TS-Robots can crawl, climb, swim and collaborate for transitioning between domains in environments with narrow entries.

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Morphological flexibility in robotic systems through physical polygon meshing

Cited by 8 publications

References 40 publications

PARTS—A 2D Self-Reconfigurable Programmable Mechanical Structure

PARTS—A 2D Self-Reconfigurable Programmable Mechanical Structure

A Fault‐Tolerant Approach for Modular Robots through Self‐Reconfiguration

Multimodal locomotion ultra-thin soft robots for exploration of narrow spaces

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