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Design and control of compliant tensegrity robots through simulation and hardware validation.

ABSTRACT: To better understand the role of tensegrity structures in biological systems and their application to robotics, the Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA, has developed and validated two software environments for the analysis, simulation and design of tensegrity robots. These tools, along with new control methodologies and the modular hardware components developed to validate them, are presented as a system for the design of actuated tensegrity structures. As evidenced from their appearance in many biological systems, tensegrity ('tensile-integrity') structures have unique physical properties that make them ideal for interaction with uncertain environments. Yet, these characteristics make design and control of bioinspired tensegrity robots extremely challenging. This work presents the progress our tools have made in tackling the design and control challenges of spherical tensegrity structures. We focus on this shape since it lends itself to rolling locomotion. The results of our analyses include multiple novel control approaches for mobility and terrain interaction of spherical tensegrity structures that have been tested in simulation. A hardware prototype of a spherical six-bar tensegrity, the Reservoir Compliant Tensegrity Robot, is used to empirically validate the accuracy of simulation.

SUBMITTER: Caluwaerts K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4233701 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Design and control of compliant tensegrity robots through simulation and hardware validation.

Caluwaerts Ken K Despraz Jérémie J Işçen Atıl A Sabelhaus Andrew P AP Bruce Jonathan J Schrauwen Benjamin B SunSpiral Vytas V

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface 20140901 98

To better understand the role of tensegrity structures in biological systems and their application to robotics, the Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA, has developed and validated two software environments for the analysis, simulation and design of tensegrity robots. These tools, along with new control methodologies and the modular hardware components developed to validate them, are presented as a system for the design of actuated tensegrity stru ...[more]

PMID: 24990292

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Project description:A major goal of autonomous robot collectives is to robustly perform complex tasks in unstructured environments by leveraging hardware redundancy and the emergent ability to adapt to perturbations. In such collectives, large numbers is a major contributor to system-level robustness. Designing robot collectives, however, requires more than isolated development of hardware and software that supports large scales. Rather, to support scalability, we must also incorporate robust constituents and weigh interrelated design choices that span fabrication, operation, and control with an explicit focus on achieving system-level robustness. Following this philosophy, we present the first iteration of a new framework toward a scalable and robust, planar, modular robot collective capable of gradient tracking in cluttered environments. To support co-design, our framework consists of hardware, low-level motion primitives, and control algorithms validated through a kinematic simulation environment. We discuss how modules made primarily of flexible printed circuit boards enable inexpensive, rapid, low-precision manufacturing; safe interactions between modules and their environment; and large-scale lattice structures beyond what manufacturing tolerances allow using rigid parts. To support redundancy, our proposed modules have on-board processing, sensing, and communication. To lower wear and consequently maintenance, modules have no internally moving parts, and instead move collaboratively via switchable magnets on their perimeter. These magnets can be in any of three states enabling a large range of module configurations and motion primitives, in turn supporting higher system adaptability. We introduce and compare several controllers that can plan in the collective's configuration space without restricting motion to a discrete occupancy grid as has been done in many past planners. We show how we can incentively redundant connections to prevent single-module failures from causing collective-wide failure, explore bad configurations which impede progress as a result of the motion constraints, and discuss an alternative "naive" planner with improved performance in both clutter-free and cluttered environments. This dedicated focus on system-level robustness over all parts of a complete design cycle, advances the state-of-the-art robots capable of long-term exploration.

Dataset Information

Design and control of compliant tensegrity robots through simulation and hardware validation.

Publications

Design and control of compliant tensegrity robots through simulation and hardware validation.

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