2018 — 2022 |
Kramer-Bottiglio, Rebecca Venkadesan, Madhusudhan Levin, Michael (co-PI) [⬀] Bongard, Joshua |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Efri C3 Soro: Programmable Skins For Moldable and Morphogenetic Soft Robots
This project seeks to address the problem of preparing a robot to perform a set of known tasks, despite the lack of any information about the task to be performed or the environment in which it occurs. The approach taken is to construct an active robotic skin, integrating motion, sensing, and decision-making into a single conformable material skin with embedded sensors and actuators, and wrap it around a passive, moldable core material. The skin acts to deform the core, in such a way as to make the robot move, in a manner which is optimized for its surroundings using evolutionary algorithms. In preliminary work, the PI team has demonstrated an initially spherical robot first causing itself to roll, and then morphing to a cylinder and switching to an inchworm-type gait. This project will leverage novel insights from biological systems to derive new operational principles for robots capable of editing their own algorithmic control structure to make use of a changing anatomy, enabling more robust functionality. The results of this research will enable morphing robots that can adjust their morphology to accomplish different tasks or move more efficiently to meet the demands of changing environments or contexts. This project addresses the producing of a transformative tool that can adapt for exploration or discovery of unknown, dangerous, or unpredictable environments. Rigid-bodied robots generally excel at specific tasks in structured environments, but lack the versatility and adaptability required to interact-with and locomote-within the natural world. This project will introduce robotic skins that wrap around arbitrary soft bodies to induce the desired motions and deformations. With the addition of robotic skins, passive soft bodies may be turned into active soft robots. Robotic skins integrate actuation, sensing, variable stiffness, and computation into a single conformable material, and may be leveraged to create morphing robots capable of editing their own morphology and control in unstructured and dynamic environments. The objective of the proposed work is to develop and implement an end-to-end procedure that begins with behavior specifications and ends with a physical self-morphing soft robot and its software environment. The approach will employ robotic skins as the foundation of morphing machines by wrapping them around moldable materials (e.g. clay), enabling surface-driven shape change. Robotic skins will mold the underlying body into a desired shape through controlled surface strains, surface pressures and selective stiffening. As the environment or task changes, the skin will re-mold the body into a new shape that is optimized for its context. This approach will leverage novel insights from diverse biological systems to derive new mathematical models, evolutionary algorithms, and multifunctional materials to enable unparalleled contextually-sensitive morphing capabilities for soft robots.
This project is jointly sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Office of Emerging Frontiers and Multidisciplinary Activities (EFMA) and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
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.
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2020 — 2022 |
Wagner, Gunter Near, Thomas (co-PI) [⬀] Ohern, Corey Venkadesan, Madhusudhan Howard, Jonathon (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Bii-Design: Evolutionary Morphogenesis and Biodiversity Institute (Embody)
The well-being of humans and ecosystems relies on biodiversity on Earth. Diversity emerged because animals and plants use a fantastic variety of methods to survive in all forms of habitats. In the case of animals, survival depends crucially on their ability to move around. Most animals use fins in water, wings in air, and limbs on land. But these appendages have extraordinary morphological diversity and can be repurposed for novel functions such as using fins to walk and limbs to swim. This project will establish the Evolutionary Morphogenesis and Biodiversity (EMBody) Institute to drive discoveries on how appendages are formed and used in animals. Complex and poorly understood processes, ranging across levels of organization from molecules through cells to populations and in speed from milliseconds to hundreds of millions of years, drive the diversity of appendages. The EMBody Institute will use multi-disciplinary collaborations to produce novel techniques and tools to study the processes that shape animal appendages. Additionally, learning how animals move over diverse environments can lead to improvements in the design of robots used in disaster relief by land, sea, or air. Importantly, the Institute will foster a culture of inclusivity to broaden participation in research, education, and public engagement with science.
A central question in biology is how biodiversity on Earth emerged from the complex, multi-scale interactions of biological processes with the physical and chemical environment. The Evolutionary Morphogenesis and Biodiversity (EMBody) Institute will focus on animal locomotion and the remarkable diversity of propulsive appendages, essential for movement and survival in diverse habitats. This Design proposal aims to establish a collaborative community that integrates the multiple disciplines needed for propelling breakthroughs in understanding the evolution of morphogenesis in vertebrate appendages such as fins, limbs, and wings. Appendages develop through morphogenesis, a dynamical process that integrates genetic patterning with biochemical and mechanical regulation. Form enables function but does not dictate it. Rather, physical interactions with the environment, governed by mechanical principles and neural control, leads to function. Ultimately, natural selection operates on function, and the evolutionary transformation of ancestral gene regulatory networks yields novel forms and functions. From genes at the smallest level to selection on populations at the largest scale, this inextricable loop is the central theme of the EMBody Institute. The Institute will integrate experts from multiple disciplines and multiple levels of biological organization: (i) development that drives the emergence of diverse morphologies from shared gene networks through regulation, (ii) biomechanics that generates function by neural, musculoskeletal, and mechanical interactions, and (iii) evolution that transforms ancestral gene networks to yield novel morphology and function. The collaborative activities will generate and test novel hypotheses, innovative measurement methods, and unique datasets to benefit multiple scientific communities.
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.
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