2023-09-08 ノースカロライナ州立大学(NCState)
◆新しいソフトロボットは非対称な設計であり、一端がもう一方よりも地面に対してより多くの力を発揮します。これにより、ソフトロボットは障害物に接触せずに回転し、複雑な迷路を進むことができます。この非対称なソフトロボットは、動く壁のある迷路や、自身の体よりも狭い空間に適応できることが実証されています。
＜関連情報＞
- https://news.ncsu.edu/2023/09/brainless-robot/
- https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adi3254
物理的に知的な自律型ソフトロボットが迷路脱出 Physically intelligent autonomous soft robotic maze escaper Science Advances Published:8 Sep 2023 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi3254
Abstract
Autonomous maze navigation is appealing yet challenging in soft robotics for exploring priori unknown unstructured environments, as it often requires human-like brain that integrates onboard power, sensors, and control for computational intelligence. Here, we report harnessing both geometric and materials intelligence in liquid crystal elastomer–based self-rolling robots for autonomous escaping from complex multichannel mazes without the need for human-like brain. The soft robot powered by environmental thermal energy has asymmetric geometry with hybrid twisted and helical shapes on two ends. Such geometric asymmetry enables built-in active and sustained self-turning capabilities, unlike its symmetric counterparts in either twisted or helical shapes that only demonstrate transient self-turning through untwisting. Combining self-snapping for motion reflection, it shows unique curved zigzag paths to avoid entrapment in its counterparts, which allows for successful self-escaping from various challenging mazes, including mazes on granular terrains, mazes with narrow gaps, and even mazes with in situ changing layouts.
