System design and locomotion of SUPERball, an untethered tensegrity robot

Abstract

The Spherical Underactuated Planetary Exploration Robot ball (SUPERball) is an ongoing project within NASA Ames Research Center's Intelligent Robotics Group and the Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab (DTRL). The current SUPERball is the first full prototype of this tensegrity robot platform, eventually destined for space exploration missions. This work, building on prior published discussions of individual components, presents the fully-constructed robot. Various design improvements are discussed, as well as testing results of the sensors and actuators that illustrate system performance. Basic low-level motor position controls are implemented and validated against sensor data, which show SUPERball to be uniquely suited for highly dynamic state trajectory tracking. Finally, SUPERball is shown in a simple example of locomotion. This implementation of a basic motion primitive shows SUPERball in untethered control.

Cellular morphogenesis of three-dimensional tensegrity structures

“…The Icosahedron (also known as the expanded octahedron) is another well-known tensegrity structure. The icosahedron possesses a spherical symmetry which makes it convenient for robotic applications such as NASA's SuperBall developed for planetary landing and exploration [12,54]. The Icosahedron is composed of six struts and twenty-four cables that connect twelve nodes.…”

Efficient Model Identification for Tensegrity Locomotion

“…While a manual process can be followed to tune a simulation to match the behavior of a real prototype Fig. 1: Tensegrity robots: a) NASA SUPERball: a robotic icosahedron with 6 rods and 24 cables [7]. b) A duct climbing robot: 2 tetrahedral frames with 8 actuated cables [8].…”

Modular Elastic Lattice Platform for Rapid Prototyping of Tensegrity Robots

“…Challenging environments for robot locomotion, such as those in space applications, have motivated recent research into tensegrity (tension-integrity) robots [1,2,3,4,5]. These robots consist of rigid elements held together in a network of cables in tension.…”