2023-11-13 プリンストン大学
A close-up of the eViper soft robot. (Photo by Bumper DeJesus)
◆eViperはピエゾ効果を利用し、電気エネルギーを機械エネルギーに変換することで、細かく同期されたパルスで駆動されます。この革新的なデバイスは、先進の電子設計や組み込まれたセンサー、制御システムを組み合わせ、非接続の完全なソフトロボットを実現しました。
◆エネルギー効率が陸上動物に匹敵するeViperは、将来のロボットシステムにおいて高いエネルギー効率が求められる中、電気、機械、電力の共同設計を探索し、新たなエネルギー効率向上の手法を提供します。
＜関連情報＞
- https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2023/11/13/inch-inch-machine-leading-soft-robotics-more-energy-efficient-future
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.01676
eViper： 紐なしモジュール式ソフトロボットのためのスケーラブルなプラットフォーム
eViper: A Scalable Platform for Untethered Modular Soft Robots
Hsin Cheng, Zhiwu Zheng, Prakhar Kumar, Wali Afridi, Ben Kim, Sigurd Wagner, Naveen Verma, James C. Sturm, Minjie Chen
arXiv Submitted on 3 Mar 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.01676
Soft robots present unique capabilities, but have been limited by the lack of scalable technologies for construction and the complexity of algorithms for efficient control and motion, which depend on soft-body dynamics, high-dimensional actuation patterns, and external/on-board forces. This paper presents scalable methods and platforms to study the impact of weight distribution and actuation patterns on fully untethered modular soft robots. An extendable Vibrating Intelligent Piezo-Electric Robot (eViper), together with an open-source Simulation Framework for Electroactive Robotic Sheet (SFERS) implemented in PyBullet, was developed as a platform to study the sophisticated weight-locomotion interaction. By integrating the power electronics, sensors, actuators, and batteries on-board, the eViper platform enables rapid design iteration and evaluation of different weight distribution and control strategies for the actuator arrays, supporting both physics-based modeling and data-driven modeling via on-board automatic data-acquisition capabilities. We show that SFERS can provide useful guidelines for optimizing the weight distribution and actuation patterns of the eViper to achieve the maximum speed or minimum cost-of-transportation (COT).
