Robert J. Full - US grants

This proposal examines how legged animals move on land. By studying the energetics and mechanics of a diverse group of animals, the findings will: 1) provide the general "rules" that animals follow for terrestrial locomotion; 2) aid in delineating the various ways in which muscles have been engineered; 3) lead to new questions in the integrated control of locomotion based on whole animal mechanics; 4) supply much needed data for ecological models focusing on the genetics and developmental aspects of locomotion; and 6) help reconstruct the origins of legged terrestrial locomotion. The applied benefits of the research include: 1) new designs for micro-machines and robots; 2) improvements on the design of vehicular legged-walking machines; and 3) generation of useful metabolic data for environmental impact studies and pest management.

Dr. Full plans to continue studying animal energetics. He wants to determine whether or not the cost of locomotion is indirectly proportional to body size, if cost is independent of the number system. He wants to unravel the underlying biomedical/biochemical basis by looking at a diverse group of animals including ants, crabs, millipedes, lizards, birds, and mammals. Dr. Full is the first to employ miniature force plate to analyze forces involved in movement patterns of tiny insects. He will develop other force plates to be applied in analyses of other animals. This research will aid in the development of general theory of animal design and movement in general.

9321458 Full This project addresses a question of major interest to physiological ecologists: does physiological capacity reflect performance in nature? Precise measurements of locomotion in nature will test predictions based on laboratory measurements of the energetics underlying endurance capacity in a nocturnal lizard, the banded gecko (Coleonyx variegatus). Nocturnal lizards represent a substantial evolutionary shift in environment. Nocturnality imposes a thermal handicap, which constrains endurance capacity to submaximal levels. Nocturnal geckos have evolved excellent fuel economy, which partially offsets the thermal handicap. In this dissertation research project, Mr. Autumn will use infrared video motion analysis to obtain quantitative measurements of frequency, speed, and duration of locomotion of banded geckos in the field. He will test the hypothesis that natural performance loads are limited by nocturnality, yet exceed the capacity of comparable diurnal lizards. This project will complete a picture that links (1) effects of evolution of environment on physiological capacity with (2) effects of evolution of physiological capacity on performance in nature. ***

From cells to populations, an organism's world is three dimensional and dynamic. Organismal analysis is on the verge of a revolution. Never in history has the equipment and computing power been sufficient to allow most organismal biologists to move rapidly and quantitatively from one level of organization to another. We are entering an era of Integration that is simply unprecedented. To this end, we propose the creation of a unique facility for organismal biologists which consists of equipment that will allow acquisition, analysis, presentation and world-wide exchange of three-dimensional (3D) structure, function and behavior. We request four major, state-of-the-art pieces of equipment in the present proposal: a 3D stereo-microscope ("real-time", large depth-of-field, resolution-enhanced), 3D laser digitizer (capable of whole organismal scans in 15 sec at 14,580 points/sec with 0.05 mm resolution), 3D high-speed imager (capable of capturing 58,000 split images in 5 sec directly into memory) and a graphics computer cluster to process, analyze and exchange the images and data. Projects greatly facilitated or made possible include: the neural basis for behavior, biomechanics of morphogensis, gut-chemical reactor modeling of digestion, 3D musculo skeletal modeling of tetrapods to the earliest hominids, 3D dynamic whole-body modeling of insect locomotion (which has provided biological inspiration toward the design of autonomous legged robots), dinosaur behavior and the fluid movements that affect organisms in the world's oceans. The proposed infrastructure equipment will promote: the utilization of approaches across disciplines, cross fertilization of ideas, the creation of new fields of investigation, new approaches for museum data collection and distribution, new collaborations with engineers, computer scientists and the private sector, and novel training of future organismal biologists.

9528436 Sastry This is a proposal to hold a workshop in Washington, DC for two and a half days from Monday, November 13th to Wednesday, November 15th, 1995 on "Architectures for Control and Learning in Natural and Artificial Systems: from Molecules to Ecosystems". The main goal of this workshop, with approximately 50 participants is to organize how the Biosystems Analysis and Control (BAC) Initiative might be expanded from its current form in a way so as to address the challenges and uses of new technological and conceptual tools for biological systems over a range of scales: from molecules to eco-systems. The format of the workshop is to have some invited presentations, with smaller break out groups to generate ideas and reports on the first two days. On day three, we will discuss the reports to arrive at a consensus of how biology and engineering can cross-fertilize each other in the area of "Architectures for Control and Learning". We hope to be able to collate the material into a report by March 1996. Sastry and Full will act as co-chairpersons of this workshop. They will also act as the organizing committee in concert with the program appropriate program directors of programs in the Biology and Engineering Directorates of NSF. ***

The objective of this NIRT project on Biologically Inspired Synthetic Gecko Adhesives is to use a biologically inspired approach, where static and dynamic measurements of gecko hair function, from the nanoscale to the whole animal will lead to development of mechanical and adhesive models. Among the 850 recognized species of geckos, those with design features easiest to model and fabricate will be chosen. Mechanical models of gecko hair patches will be analyzed and simulated to determine the conditions for robust elastic and adhesive interactions with rough surfaces. In parallel, setal hairs and sptulae will be nanofabricated using self-assembly of block copolymers. Measurements on low-complexity spatula arrays will be used to refine models of biological gecko adhesion and to guide the design of more complicated, and more functional, synthetic gecko adhesive patches which include a flexible substrate, setal hairs, and a hundred million nanoscale spatula tips per square centimeters.

The last half-century has witnessed unprecedented discoveries from molecular motors to brain images during movement. Despite such extraordinary advances, how the multitudes of structures at different scales interact to generate an animals' hallmark behavior - locomotion - remains elusive. While locomotion can be deconstructed into a simple cascade - from brain to muscles to work on the external world - such a unidirectional framework has failed to incorporate essential dynamic properties created by an interaction of networks among and within levels. The grand challenge is to elucidate the complex network of dynamical systems that allows animal locomotion. This research will uncover fundamental control architectures by physically perturbing running insects, challenging them with virtual terrains, degrading and rewriting the neural codes while measuring motion, forces and neuromuscular signals (http://polypedal.berkeley.edu/NSB). The project capitalizes on a dynamical systems approach in concert with our remarkable hexapedal, legged robot as a controlled experiment, manipulating parameters more easily than in animals, but subjecting the physical model to real environments. The project's stated challenge cannot be met within the domain of Biology alone, even if biologists take a multi-level, multidimensional approach. The challenge demands a multidisciplinary effort to match data across mathematical models, numerical simulations, physical models, as well as biological experiments. The project's team incorporates experts across the full spectrum of these disciplines.
Broader Impacts: To the broader community, the project will deliver computational tools applicable to dynamical models of gene regulation, metabolism, and cardiology, as well as neuroscience and locomotion. Findings will stimulate a new field of neuromechanical systems biology, inspire novel controllers in engineering, lead to development of prostheses and artificial muscles and further the design of the first search and rescue robot that has performance truly comparable to animals. Most importantly, the project will produce a new type of young scientist who can lead this emerging multidisciplinary frontier. Discoveries will be shared through publication, symposia, a web-based flagship course, and educational robotics contests.

The ability to develop legged robots that can effectively run over flat, inclined, uneven and deformable surfaces is critical to a wide range of civilian (e.g., search and rescue) and military (e.g., reconnaissance, mine detection) applications. This task has proven particularly problematic to traditional control strategies, yet many animals, unlike their synthetic counterparts, are able to transcend complex environments such as jungles, caves, deserts, buildings, and piles of rubble with remarkable ease. Despite their miniscule size, insects can function in almost any environment by means of their ability to climb, crawl, or run as the situation demands. Although recent progress has been made in the development of bio-inspired robots capable of locomotion over uneven ground, and others that can (slowly) climb sheer surfaces, no legged machines currently exist that can dynamically operate in a combination of vertical and horizontal regimes. The recent discovery that rapidly climbing cockroaches and geckos utilize their legs to actively pull the body toward the feet, rather than pushing the body away as in running, has inspired a new dynamic model for vertical running and the construction of the first dynamic climbing robot. The salient feature of this climbing model and robot is the intentional utilization of large lateral pulling forces when rapidly climbing. Since these pulling motions observed experimentally do not appear to provide an obvious energetic advantage, we hypothesize that this type of side to side climbing is driven primarily by stability considerations. This project pursues an integrated study of insect biomechanics, dynamic modeling, and robotic synthesis to determine the importance and proper utilization of lateral oscillations in running and climbing over various degrees of incline.

The study seeks to answer these questions not only to provide insight into animal biomechanics, but also to produce guiding principles that can be utilized to develop the next generation of dynamic legged robots. In particular we aim to understand the connection between neuromuscular control strategies in insects and functional performance in changing environments (i.e. slope and substrate), develop reduced order models to determine how lateral motion pattern contribute to improved stability and locomotion performance, and develop a novel robotic test platform to empirically test the predictions of the bio-inspired locomotion models and provide insight into how lateral dynamics can be explicitly utilized to improve the mobility of legged robots over varying terrain and substrates.

This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program will train biology and engineering students to learn from natural design - a process termed biological inspiration. In particular, trainees will discover principles that underlie how organisms move in complex environments, and learn to use those principles as inspiration to design human-engineered systems. Four focus areas for research opportunities include the mechanics of systems that locomote, their control mechanisms, the structure and function of their materials, and their evolution. A three-stage training program integrates with the research focus and is facilitated by a new Berkeley center - CiBER - the Center for interdisciplinary Biological-inspiration in Education and Research. Stage 1offers a customized core curriculum to develop a common scientific language, and to discover opportunities to contribute to and benefit from bio- and bio-inspired motion systems. Trainees will participate in a new research-based teaching laboratory where teams of biology and engineering students work together to make original biomechanical discoveries. This experience transitions them into Stage 2 where they begin research rotations and international experiences at leading European institutes guided by a "Bionics" network. In Stage 3, students learn the application of discovery through entrepreneurship courses and internships. Developing direct pipelines to a diverse group of undergraduates will encourage participation of women and underrepresented groups. Trainees in this IGERT will advance the field of motion science with research leading to novel inventions that may never have been considered by engineers such as gecko-inspired hairy adhesives, artificial muscles, new prostheses, and search-and-rescue robots. By sharing these advances with the public, non-scientists will see more clearly why we must preserve the diversity of species and their environments - before their secrets are lost forever. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Intellectual Merit
This project mixes results and methods from cognitive psychology, computational vision and learning, neuromechanical systems biology, and robotics to develop a computer assisted environment for studying animal sensorimotor strategies, discovering how they undergird animal cognitive capabilities, and using those insights to inspire new algorithms for robot navigation, localization and situational awareness. We observe live, intact, highly mobile terrestrial invertebrate predators such as ghost crabs, desert scorpions and tiger beetles in carefully constructed habitats that challenge their ability to negotiate terrain and navigate space. We automate the collection, annotation and mathematical model extraction of their behavior from massive, parallel real-time recordings of visual, muscle, neural, and biomechanical recordings. We mine these data sets to develop intuitive hypotheses as well as formal mathematical representations of the basis on which these animals organize their own sensorimotor data streams to compile novel behaviors from previously consolidated constituents in a process of autonomous mental development. We add numerous existing sensor suites to highly agile existing robot bodies and instantiate algorithmically the hypothesized animal models to develop supporting or refuting evidence that challenges and refines them.
Broader Impacts
Scientifically, the new computational tools and ideas we identify in the interrelations we set up promise a bridge between whole areas of disciplines that have long been divided by spatiotemporal scale and the concomitant gap in analytical tradition, terminology and methods. For example, the study of these complex competencies in simpler species offers a new glimpse at the building blocks of cognition in species more closely related to humans. From the perspective of technological invention, algorithms pioneered in this research could lend an animal-like quality to a machine?s proximal tenacity in engaging its environment and even its overall situational awareness within unstructured worlds. For example, the team is inspired to imagine what it might be like to have a search and rescue robot with the (taskable) capabilities of a ghost crab. From the perspective of training and education, the automated database collection and management tools developed in this project bring to a mass audience the conceptual and computational building blocks that have heretofore been the exclusive province of a small group of experts. For example, a universally accessible (?cloud-based?) tool for unifying the design, parsing, display, and cross comparison of robots and animals searchable at will from the most intimate to the broadest scale of design and operation would have a profound impact on the ability of teachers at many different levels to motivate the fascination and unity of both synthetic and biological science.