Category robots

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RoboHouse Interview Trilogy, part I: Christian Geckeler and the origami gripper

By in News, robotics, Robotics Classification, robots, robots in business, Robots Podcast Tag

Part one of our RoboHouse Interview Trilogy: The Working Life of Robotics Engineers seeks out Christian Geckeler. Christian is a PhD student at the Environmental Robotics Lab of ETH Zürich. He speaks with Rens van Poppel about the experience of getting high into the wild.

What if drones could help place sensors in forests more easily? What if a sensor device could automatically grab and hold a tree branch? Which flexible material is also strong and biodegradable? These leaps of imagination lead Christian to a new kind of gripper, inspired by the Japanese art of folding.

His origami design wraps itself around tree branches close enough to trigger an unfolding movement. This invention may in the future improve our insight into hard-to-access forest canopies, in a way that is environmentally friendly and pleasant for human operators.

What is it like to work in the forest as a researcher with this technology?
“Robotic solutions deployed in forests are currently scarce,” says Christian. “So developing solutions for such an environment is challenging, but also rewarding. Personally I also enjoy being outdoors. Compared to a lab, the forest is wilder and more unpredictable. Which I find wonderful, except when it’s cold.”

Are there limits as to where the gripper can be deployed?
“The gripper is quite versatile. Rather than the type of trees, it is the diameter and angle of the branch that dictate whether the gripper can attach. Even so, dense foliage could hinder the drone, and there should be sufficient space for the gripper to attach.”

Christian Geckeler, PhD student at the Environmental Robotics Lab of ETH Zürich, a university for science and technology in Switzerland where some 530 professors teach around 20,500 students – including 4,100 doctoral students – from over 120 countries.

Are the used materials environmentally friendly?
“Currently not all components are biodegradable, and the gripper must be recollected after sampling is finished. However, we are currently working on a fully biodegradable gripper, which releases itself and falls on the ground after being exposed to sufficient amounts of water, which makes collection much easier.”

How good at outdoor living do aspiring tree-canopy researchers need to be?
“Everything is a learning process,” says Christian philosophically. “Rather than existing expertise, a willingness to learn and passion for the subject is much more important.”

What happens when the drone gets stuck in a tree?
“As a safety measure, the drone has a protective net on top which prevents leaves and branches from coming in contact with the propeller. And we avoid interaction between the drone and foliage, so this has never happened.”

What struck you when took the gripper into the wild?
“Perhaps the most surprising thing was the great variance that is found in nature; no two trees are alike and every branch is different. The only way of finding out if your solution works is by testing outside as soon and as often as possible.”

Christian ends with a note on the importance of social and technical interplay in robotics: “You may think you develop a robot perfectly, but you must make sure society actually wants it and that it is easy to use for not technically-minded people too.”

The post RoboHouse Interview Trilogy, Part I: Christian Geckeler and The Origami Gripper appeared first on RoboHouse.

Nimble autonomous robots help researchers explore the ocean, no ship required

By in News, robotics, Robotics Classification, robots, robots in business, Robots Podcast Tag
The ocean covers more than 70% of the planet's surface and its expansive depths represent the largest living space on Earth. To understand the massive marine environment, scientists need research tools that can travel far and wide. Research vessels provide a critical platform for exploring the ocean. But going to sea on a research ship requires substantial resources. Institutions must invest in their own fleet and crew or rely on shared vessels, where demand greatly exceeds capacity.

Robot Talk Episode 36 – Interview with Ignazio Maria Viola

By in News, robotics, Robotics Classification, robots, robots in business, Robots Podcast Tag

Claire chatted to Professor Ignazio Maria Viola from the University of Edinburgh all about aerodynamics, dandelion-inspired drones, and swarm sensing.

Ignazio Maria Viola is Professor of Fluid Mechanics and Bioinspired Engineering at the School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, and Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. He is the recipient of the ERC Consolidator Grant Dandidrone to explore the unsteady aerodynamics of dandelion-inspired drones.

AI-Powered FRIDA robot collaborates with humans to create art

By in News, robotics, Robotics Classification, robots, robots in business, Robots Podcast Tag
Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute has a new artist-in-residence. FRIDA, a robotic arm with a paintbrush taped to it, uses artificial intelligence to collaborate with humans on works of art. Ask FRIDA to paint a picture, and it gets to work putting brush to canvas.

Engineers devise a modular system to produce efficient, scalable aquabots

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Researchers have come up with an innovative approach to building deformable underwater robots using simple repeating substructures. The team has demonstrated the new system in two different example configurations, one like an eel, pictured here in the MIT tow tank. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

By David L. Chandler | MIT News Office

Underwater structures that can change their shapes dynamically, the way fish do, push through water much more efficiently than conventional rigid hulls. But constructing deformable devices that can change the curve of their body shapes while maintaining a smooth profile is a long and difficult process. MIT’s RoboTuna, for example, was composed of about 3,000 different parts and took about two years to design and build.

Now, researchers at MIT and their colleagues — including one from the original RoboTuna team — have come up with an innovative approach to building deformable underwater robots, using simple repeating substructures instead of unique components. The team has demonstrated the new system in two different example configurations, one like an eel and the other a wing-like hydrofoil. The principle itself, however, allows for virtually unlimited variations in form and scale, the researchers say.

The work is being reported in the journal Soft Robotics, in a paper by MIT research assistant Alfonso Parra Rubio, professors Michael Triantafyllou and Neil Gershenfeld, and six others.

Existing approaches to soft robotics for marine applications are generally made on small scales, while many useful real-world applications require devices on scales of meters. The new modular system the researchers propose could easily be extended to such sizes and beyond, without requiring the kind of retooling and redesign that would be needed to scale up current systems.

The deformable robots are made with lattice-like pieces, called voxels, that are low density and have high stiffness. The deformable robots are made with lattice-like pieces, called voxels, that are low density and have high stiffness. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

“Scalability is a strong point for us,” says Parra Rubio. Given the low density and high stiffness of the lattice-like pieces, called voxels, that make up their system, he says, “we have more room to keep scaling up,” whereas most currently used technologies “rely on high-density materials facing drastic problems” in moving to larger sizes.

The individual voxels in the team’s experimental, proof-of-concept devices are mostly hollow structures made up of cast plastic pieces with narrow struts in complex shapes. The box-like shapes are load-bearing in one direction but soft in others, an unusual combination achieved by blending stiff and flexible components in different proportions.

“Treating soft versus hard robotics is a false dichotomy,” Parra Rubio says. “This is something in between, a new way to construct things.” Gershenfeld, head of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, adds that “this is a third way that marries the best elements of both.”

“Smooth flexibility of the body surface allows us to implement flow control that can reduce drag and improve propulsive efficiency, resulting in substantial fuel saving,” says Triantafyllou, who is the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Professor in Ocean Science and Engineering, and was part of the RoboTuna team.


Credit: Courtesy of the researchers.

In one of the devices produced by the team, the voxels are attached end-to-end in a long row to form a meter-long, snake-like structure. The body is made up of four segments, each consisting of five voxels, with an actuator in the center that can pull a wire attached to each of the two voxels on either side, contracting them and causing the structure to bend. The whole structure of 20 units is then covered with a rib-like supporting structure, and then a tight-fitting waterproof neoprene skin. The researchers deployed the structure in an MIT tow tank to show its efficiency in the water, and demonstrated that it was indeed capable of generating forward thrust sufficient to propel itself forward using undulating motions.

“There have been many snake-like robots before,” Gershenfeld says. “But they’re generally made of bespoke components, as opposed to these simple building blocks that are scalable.”

For example, Parra Rubio says, a snake-like robot built by NASA was made up of thousands of unique pieces, whereas for this group’s snake, “we show that there are some 60 pieces.” And compared to the two years spent designing and building the MIT RoboTuna, this device was assembled in about two days, he says.

The individual voxels are mostly hollow structures made up of cast plastic pieces with narrow struts in complex shapes. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

The other device they demonstrated is a wing-like shape, or hydrofoil, made up of an array of the same voxels but able to change its profile shape and therefore control the lift-to-drag ratio and other properties of the wing. Such wing-like shapes could be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from generating power from waves to helping to improve the efficiency of ship hulls — a pressing demand, as shipping is a significant source of carbon emissions.

The wing shape, unlike the snake, is covered in an array of scale-like overlapping tiles, designed to press down on each other to maintain a waterproof seal even as the wing changes its curvature. One possible application might be in some kind of addition to a ship’s hull profile that could reduce the formation of drag-inducing eddies and thus improve its overall efficiency, a possibility that the team is exploring with collaborators in the shipping industry.

The team also created a wing-like hydrofoil. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

Ultimately, the concept might be applied to a whale-like submersible craft, using its morphable body shape to create propulsion. Such a craft that could evade bad weather by staying below the surface, but without the noise and turbulence of conventional propulsion. The concept could also be applied to parts of other vessels, such as racing yachts, where having a keel or a rudder that could curve gently during a turn instead of remaining straight could provide an extra edge. “Instead of being rigid or just having a flap, if you can actually curve the way fish do, you can morph your way around the turn much more efficiently,” Gershenfeld says.

The research team included Dixia Fan of the Westlake University in China; Benjamin Jenett SM ’15, PhD ’ 20 of Discrete Lattice Industries; Jose del Aguila Ferrandis, Amira Abdel-Rahman and David Preiss of MIT; and Filippos Tourlomousis of the Demokritos Research Center of Greece. The work was supported by the U.S. Army Research Lab, CBA Consortia funding, and the MIT Sea Grant Program.

Towards an interactive cyber-physical human platform to generate contact-rich whole-body motions

By in News, robotics, Robotics Classification, robots, robots in business, Robots Podcast Tag
Humans naturally perform numerous complex tasks. These include sitting down, picking something up from a table, and pushing a cart. These activities involve various movements and require multiple contacts, which makes it difficult to program robots to perform them.

What are co-bots?

By in News, robotics, Robotics Classification, robots, robots in business, Robots Podcast Tag

Co-bot stands for “collaborative robots”. These robots are designed to work alongside humans, by performing repetitive or heavy tasks, which would greatly ease the burden on the human worker while he or she can focus on tasks that require higher skills.

A critical item for making this possible is to implement certain safety mechanisms on these robots, in order to prevent harm to humans. This can be achieved by certain sensors placed on the robots body, in order to prevent impacts to human workers. These sensors include force, torque and ultrasonic sensors. It is also necessary to cover robots body with soft material.

Working alongside humans means that there will be more unexpected circumstances in robots environment, in comparison to unchanging environments of industrial robots. Therefore, these robots must operate with considerably more complex visual recognition and AI abilities. These robots can also be trained for new tasks by literally guiding them physically in addition to classical programming, which is very intuitive and efficient.

The market of collaborative robots is ever growing, since their beginning about 1-2 decades ago.  

What are co-bots?

By in News, robotics, Robotics Classification, robots, robots in business, Robots Podcast Tag

Co-bot stands for “collaborative robots”. These robots are designed to work alongside humans, by performing repetitive or heavy tasks, which would greatly ease the burden on the human worker while he or she can focus on tasks that require higher skills.

A critical item for making this possible is to implement certain safety mechanisms on these robots, in order to prevent harm to humans. This can be achieved by certain sensors placed on the robots body, in order to prevent impacts to human workers. These sensors include force, torque and ultrasonic sensors. It is also necessary to cover robots body with soft material.

Working alongside humans means that there will be more unexpected circumstances in robots environment, in comparison to unchanging environments of industrial robots. Therefore, these robots must operate with considerably more complex visual recognition and AI abilities. These robots can also be trained for new tasks by literally guiding them physically in addition to classical programming, which is very intuitive and efficient.

The market of collaborative robots is ever growing, since their beginning about 1-2 decades ago.  

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