Robogami - real descendants of terminators and transformers

Ask anyone what comes to mind when they say “robot,” and you’ll probably get answers based on pop culture. For example, T-1000 made of liquid metal, capable of changing shape, from the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991); or Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, the main character in the Transformers movie franchise (2007-). Who can forget Data from the series Star Trek: The New Generation (1987-94), the cybernetic version of Pinocchio, striving to become more human?

These, and countless other examples, contain some humanoids. When Optimus is not in the shape of a truck, he has legs and arms. By default, the T-1000 has a human shape. Data was modeled in the image of its human creator. According to Hollywood standards, the final version of robotic technologies cannot be outwardly distinguished from the people themselves.

And if our imagination is not limited by anything, technological problems still do not allow us to create in reality robots that perfectly imitate human behavior. And yet I tried to solve this problem. My knowledge in mechanical engineering allowed me to achieve my goal through the development of mechanisms with complex parameters. One of them was associated with the design of a simulator of the motor muscles of the eyes. No, this project was not needed to create one of the components of the terminator; it was an attempt to understand and simulate the behavior of the human eye.

To do this, it was necessary to come up with a visual system that performed saccademovements - fast and simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction with a maximum speed of more than 500 degrees per second (yes, people are capable of this). The mechanical system, like the human eyes, had to work along three independent rotation axes (degrees of freedom, SS). Our eyes are able to move not only up / down or right / left, but also capable of twisting movements. It was quite difficult to place all the electrically and mechanical parts of the system, including joints, connections and motors, in a given volume. And all this was needed for just one, well-defined task.

This was followed by several other human-inspired robots. And although I reached my goal, my robots had limitations. For example, I developed a robotic arm with 8 SS and a brush with 7 SS (weighing 3.7 kg together, which is comparable to human hands), and they turned out to be flexible enough to take and throw a baseball, but they are not able to raise a coin. They can shake hands with enough power, but they are not able to move their thumb fast enough.

In short, the limbs I created were limited in scope. They had a certain number of joints and power drives, which means that their functionality and shape have been driven into the framework since their invention. The robotic arm had motorized joints, allowing you to hit the ball, but not able to cook a talker. However, if there are an infinite number of tasks, will they require an infinite number of combinations of robots?

The world of endless possibilities, like the one described in the animated film “Big Hero 6” (2014), where there are microbots, seemed to me very far away when I realized that we already have a flexible and multifaceted platform for robots. The method of using the same basic components to create different, defined forms has existed for centuries. It is called origami.

Who did not make a paper airplane, a paper boat or a crane from a piece of paper? Origami is an existing and multifaceted platform for designers. You can create many forms from one sheet, and if you do not like them, you can expand it and start again. Mathematicians even proved that you can get any three-dimensional shape by folding a two-dimensional surface.

Can this technology be applied to robot design? Imagine a robotic module that can use polygons to create many different shapes, many robots to solve different problems. Moreover, imagine a “smart sheet” that can independently fold into any desired shape depending on the needs of the environment.

The first origami robot, which I called "robots," I made ten years ago. It was a simple creature - a flat robot that could fold into a pyramid and fold back into a flat figure, and then fold into a spaceship.

My studies, in which graduate students and one postdoc help me, have since progressed orderly, and now a new generation of robots is coming out. It is intended for specific purposes: for example, one of the robots can autonomously move on various surfaces. On a dry and flat surface, it moves crawling. If he encounters an uneven surface, he will roll, activating the motors in a different sequence. Faced with an obstacle, he can just jump over it! To do this, he stores energy in each of the legs, and then throws it out, catapulting like a shot from a sling.



Robots even know how to understand and assemble, depending on the environment and tasks. Robots are not conceived as one robot for a specific task - they are designed and optimized from the very beginning to perform various tasks.

And this is only one robots. Imagine what several robots in a group are capable of. Together they can solve more complex problems. Each module, in active or passive mode, can be assembled in various forms. By controlling folding joints, they can solve various problems in a changing environment. For example, one can imagine space with unpredictable conditions. A robotic platform that can change to complete various tasks can increase the likelihood of a successful mission.

A radical geometric realignment by robots became possible thanks to two scientific breakthroughs. One of them is a layered production process: several functional layers containing robotic components (microcontrollers, sensors, drives, circuits, and even batteries) are stacked on top of each other. The second is the transition in design from typical mechanical joints to a whole range of folding joints.

It turns out that instead of concentrating on minimizing the size of the components of the joints, we can reduce the number of components during the development of the robot. We can miniaturize systems that contain many components and require a complex assembly and calibration process, making them flat; they can be superimposed, while maintaining accuracy.

One such system is tactile control, when the user and the computer interact through a mechanism such as a joystick. It is often used in surgical robots when surgeons require high accuracy and high resolution feedback. To do this, you have to organize a large operating room with robotic arms, which have a large number of degrees of freedom, and allow surgeons to feel the density of organs and cavities using a motorized interface that conveys the difference in effects on the robot effector.

Robogs make tactile technology more accessible than ever. Such an interface in the case of robotsYou can imagine something like a folding joystick, which can be equipped with a smartphone cover. If you connect the tactile interface to the phone, it can be used as a portable joystick, applicable in such everyday tasks as shopping or online training. It will allow you to gropingly study various organs of a person by the anatomical atlas, the geographical features of places on the map, or even the density and maturity of different types of cheeses or fruits.

Robotic technologies are moving toward greater personalization and adaptation to people, and this unique kind of tunable origami robots looks very promising. It can become a platform providing an intuitive and embedded interface. Robots will no longer look like movie characters. They will surround us, constantly adjusting their form and functions - and we will not even notice it.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/undefined/