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Chapter 23 — Biomimetic Robots

Kyu-Jin Cho and Robert Wood

Biomimetic robot designs attempt to translate biological principles into engineered systems, replacing more classical engineering solutions in order to achieve a function observed in the natural system. This chapter will focus on mechanism design for bio-inspired robots that replicate key principles from nature with novel engineering solutions. The challenges of biomimetic design include developing a deep understanding of the relevant natural system and translating this understanding into engineering design rules. This often entails the development of novel fabrication and actuation to realize the biomimetic design.

This chapter consists of four sections. In Sect. 23.1, we will define what biomimetic design entails, and contrast biomimetic robots with bio-inspired robots. In Sect. 23.2, we will discuss the fundamental components for developing a biomimetic robot. In Sect. 23.3, we will review detailed biomimetic designs that have been developed for canonical robot locomotion behaviors including flapping-wing flight, jumping, crawling, wall climbing, and swimming. In Sect. 23.4, we will discuss the enabling technologies for these biomimetic designs including material and fabrication.

An octopus-bioinspired solution to movement and manipulation for soft robots

Author  Marcello Calisti, Michelle Giorelli, Guy Levy, Barbara Mazzolai, Binyamin Hochner, Cecilia Laschi, Paolo Dario

Video ID : 411

A totally soft robotic arm freely moving in water was inspired by the form and morphology of the octopus.

Chapter 20 — Snake-Like and Continuum Robots

Ian D. Walker, Howie Choset and Gregory S. Chirikjian

This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art of snake-like (backbones comprised of many small links) and continuum (continuous backbone) robots. The history of each of these classes of robot is reviewed, focusing on key hardware developments. A review of the existing theory and algorithms for kinematics for both types of robot is presented, followed by a summary ofmodeling of locomotion for snake-like and continuum mechanisms.

Binary manipulator navigating an obstacle

Author  Greg Chirikjian

Video ID : 163

Simulation of Greg Chirikjian's binary manipulator navigating an obstacle.

Chapter 67 — Humanoids

Paul Fitzpatrick, Kensuke Harada, Charles C. Kemp, Yoshio Matsumoto, Kazuhito Yokoi and Eiichi Yoshida

Humanoid robots selectively immitate aspects of human form and behavior. Humanoids come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from complete human-size legged robots to isolated robotic heads with human-like sensing and expression. This chapter highlights significant humanoid platforms and achievements, and discusses some of the underlying goals behind this area of robotics. Humanoids tend to require the integration ofmany of the methods covered in detail within other chapters of this handbook, so this chapter focuses on distinctive aspects of humanoid robotics with liberal cross-referencing.

This chapter examines what motivates researchers to pursue humanoid robotics, and provides a taste of the evolution of this field over time. It summarizes work on legged humanoid locomotion, whole-body activities, and approaches to human–robot communication. It concludes with a brief discussion of factors that may influence the future of humanoid robots.

Footstep planning modeled as a whole-body, inverse-kinematic problem

Author  Eiichi Yoshida

Video ID : 596

An augmented-robot structure was introduced as "virtual" planar links attached to a foot that represents footsteps. This modeling makes it possible to solve the footstep planning as a problem of inverse kinematics, and also to determine the final whole-body configuration. After planning the footsteps, the dynamically-stable, whole-body motion including walking can be computed by using a dynamic pattern generator.

Chapter 23 — Biomimetic Robots

Kyu-Jin Cho and Robert Wood

Biomimetic robot designs attempt to translate biological principles into engineered systems, replacing more classical engineering solutions in order to achieve a function observed in the natural system. This chapter will focus on mechanism design for bio-inspired robots that replicate key principles from nature with novel engineering solutions. The challenges of biomimetic design include developing a deep understanding of the relevant natural system and translating this understanding into engineering design rules. This often entails the development of novel fabrication and actuation to realize the biomimetic design.

This chapter consists of four sections. In Sect. 23.1, we will define what biomimetic design entails, and contrast biomimetic robots with bio-inspired robots. In Sect. 23.2, we will discuss the fundamental components for developing a biomimetic robot. In Sect. 23.3, we will review detailed biomimetic designs that have been developed for canonical robot locomotion behaviors including flapping-wing flight, jumping, crawling, wall climbing, and swimming. In Sect. 23.4, we will discuss the enabling technologies for these biomimetic designs including material and fabrication.

A miniature 7g jumping robot

Author  Mirko Kovac, Martin Fuchs, Andre Guignard, Jean-Christophe Zufferey, Dario Floreano

Video ID : 279

Jumping can be a very efficient mode of locomotion for small robots to overcome large obstacles and travel in rough, natural terrain. We present the development and characterization of a novel 5 cm, 7 g jumping robot. It can jump obstacles more than 27 times its own size and outperforms existing jumping robots by one order of magnitude with respect to jump height per weight and jump height per size. It employs elastic elements in a four bar linkage leg system to enable very powerful jumps and adjustments of the jumping force, take-off angle and force profile during the acceleration phase. This 2 min video includes footage of jumping desert locusts, computer aided design (CAD) animations, close ups of the jumps using high-speed imaging at 1000 frames/s and the robot moving in rough terrain.

Chapter 47 — Motion Planning and Obstacle Avoidance

Javier Minguez, Florant Lamiraux and Jean-Paul Laumond

This chapter describes motion planning and obstacle avoidance for mobile robots. We will see how the two areas do not share the same modeling background. From the very beginning of motion planning, research has been dominated by computer sciences. Researchers aim at devising well-grounded algorithms with well-understood completeness and exactness properties.

The challenge of this chapter is to present both nonholonomic motion planning (Sects. 47.1–47.6) and obstacle avoidance (Sects. 47.7–47.10) issues. Section 47.11 reviews recent successful approaches that tend to embrace the whole problemofmotion planning and motion control. These approaches benefit from both nonholonomic motion planning and obstacle avoidance methods.

Sensor-based trajectory deformation and docking for nonholonomic mobile robots

Author  Florent Lamiraux

Video ID : 80

This video demonstrates motion planning and reactive obstacle avoidance for nonholonomic robots. A mobile robot with a trailer is asked to park into a U-shaped obstacle. Motion planning is performed by a visibility-based PRM algorithm using a flatness-based steering method built on convex combinations of canonical curves. The planned trajectory is then followed by the robot while detecting obstacles using a laser scanner. The current trajectory is locally deformed in order to avoid obstacles and to end at the detected U-shaped obstacle.

Chapter 23 — Biomimetic Robots

Kyu-Jin Cho and Robert Wood

Biomimetic robot designs attempt to translate biological principles into engineered systems, replacing more classical engineering solutions in order to achieve a function observed in the natural system. This chapter will focus on mechanism design for bio-inspired robots that replicate key principles from nature with novel engineering solutions. The challenges of biomimetic design include developing a deep understanding of the relevant natural system and translating this understanding into engineering design rules. This often entails the development of novel fabrication and actuation to realize the biomimetic design.

This chapter consists of four sections. In Sect. 23.1, we will define what biomimetic design entails, and contrast biomimetic robots with bio-inspired robots. In Sect. 23.2, we will discuss the fundamental components for developing a biomimetic robot. In Sect. 23.3, we will review detailed biomimetic designs that have been developed for canonical robot locomotion behaviors including flapping-wing flight, jumping, crawling, wall climbing, and swimming. In Sect. 23.4, we will discuss the enabling technologies for these biomimetic designs including material and fabrication.

SpinybotII: Climbing hard walls with compliant microspines

Author  Sangbae Kim, Alan T. Asbeck, Mark R. Cutkosky, William R. Provancher

Video ID : 388

This climbing robot can scale flat, hard vertical surfaces including those made of concrete, brick, stucco and masonry without using suction or adhesives. It employs arrays of miniature spines that catch opportunistically on surface asperities. The approach is inspired by the mechanisms observed in some climbing insects and spiders.

Chapter 69 — Physical Human-Robot Interaction

Sami Haddadin and Elizabeth Croft

Over the last two decades, the foundations for physical human–robot interaction (pHRI) have evolved from successful developments in mechatronics, control, and planning, leading toward safer lightweight robot designs and interaction control schemes that advance beyond the current capacities of existing high-payload and highprecision position-controlled industrial robots. Based on their ability to sense physical interaction, render compliant behavior along the robot structure, plan motions that respect human preferences, and generate interaction plans for collaboration and coaction with humans, these novel robots have opened up novel and unforeseen application domains, and have advanced the field of human safety in robotics.

This chapter gives an overview on the state of the art in pHRI as of the date of publication. First, the advances in human safety are outlined, addressing topics in human injury analysis in robotics and safety standards for pHRI. Then, the foundations of human-friendly robot design, including the development of lightweight and intrinsically flexible force/torque-controlled machines together with the required perception abilities for interaction are introduced. Subsequently, motionplanning techniques for human environments, including the domains of biomechanically safe, risk-metric-based, human-aware planning are covered. Finally, the rather recent problem of interaction planning is summarized, including the issues of collaborative action planning, the definition of the interaction planning problem, and an introduction to robot reflexes and reactive control architecture for pHRI.

An assistive, decision-and-control architecture for force-sensitive, hand-arm systems driven via human-machine interfaces (MM1)

Author  Jörn Vogel, Sami Haddadin, John D. Simeral, Daniel Bacher , Beata Jarosiewicz, Leigh R. Hochberg, John P. Donoghue, Patrick van der Smagt

Video ID : 619

The video shows the "grasp" and "release" skills demonstrated in a 1-D control task using the Braingate2 neural-interface system. The robot is controlled through a multipriority Cartesian impedance controller and its behavior is extended with collision detection and reflex reaction. Furthermore, virtual workspaces are added to ensure safety. On top of this, a decision-and-control architecture, which uses sensory information available from the robotic system to evaluate the current state of task execution, is employed.

Chapter 17 — Limbed Systems

Shuuji Kajita and Christian Ott

A limbed system is a mobile robot with a body, legs and arms. First, its general design process is discussed in Sect. 17.1. Then we consider issues of conceptual design and observe designs of various existing robots in Sect. 17.2. As an example in detail, the design of a humanoid robot HRP-4C is shown in Sect. 17.3. To design a limbed system of good performance, it is important to take into account of actuation and control, like gravity compensation, limit cycle dynamics, template models, and backdrivable actuation. These are discussed in Sect. 17.4.

In Sect. 17.5, we overview divergence of limbed systems. We see odd legged walkers, leg–wheel hybrid robots, leg–arm hybrid robots, tethered walking robots, and wall-climbing robots. To compare limbed systems of different configurations,we can use performance indices such as the gait sensitivity norm, the Froude number, and the specific resistance, etc., which are introduced in Sect. 17.6.

Waalbot: Agile climbing with synthetic fibrillar dry adhesives

Author  Mike Murphy

Video ID : 541

A wall climbing robot developed by Dr. Murphy and Dr. Sitti.

Chapter 61 — Robot Surveillance and Security

Wendell H. Chun and Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos

This chapter introduces the foundation for surveillance and security robots for multiple military and civilian applications. The key environmental domains are mobile robots for ground, aerial, surface water, and underwater applications. Surveillance literallymeans to watch fromabove,while surveillance robots are used to monitor the behavior, activities, and other changing information that are gathered for the general purpose of managing, directing, or protecting one’s assets or position. In a practical sense, the term surveillance is taken to mean the act of observation from a distance, and security robots are commonly used to protect and safeguard a location, some valuable assets, or personal against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Surveillance is a proactive operation,while security robots are a defensive operation. The construction of each type of robot is similar in nature with amobility component, sensor payload, communication system, and an operator control station.

After introducing the major robot components, this chapter focuses on the various applications. More specifically, Sect. 61.3 discusses the enabling technologies of mobile robot navigation, various payload sensors used for surveillance or security applications, target detection and tracking algorithms, and the operator’s robot control console for human–machine interface (HMI). Section 61.4 presents selected research activities relevant to surveillance and security, including automatic data processing of the payload sensors, automaticmonitoring of human activities, facial recognition, and collaborative automatic target recognition (ATR). Finally, Sect. 61.5 discusses future directions in robot surveillance and security, giving some conclusions and followed by references.

Security: Facial recognition

Author  Ali Mollahosseini, Mohammad Mahoor

Video ID : 553

Video of face tracking and facial-landmark-point extraction of Ali's face for a security robot.

Chapter 76 — Evolutionary Robotics

Stefano Nolfi, Josh Bongard, Phil Husbands and Dario Floreano

Evolutionary Robotics is a method for automatically generating artificial brains and morphologies of autonomous robots. This approach is useful both for investigating the design space of robotic applications and for testing scientific hypotheses of biological mechanisms and processes. In this chapter we provide an overview of methods and results of Evolutionary Robotics with robots of different shapes, dimensions, and operation features. We consider both simulated and physical robots with special consideration to the transfer between the two worlds.

Online learning to adapt to fast environmental variations

Author  Dario Floreano

Video ID : 40

A mobile robot Khepera, equipped with a vision module, can gain fitness points by staying on the gray area only when the light is on. The light is normally off, but it can be switched on if the robot passes over the black area positioned on the other side of the arena. The robot can detect ambient light and wall color, but not the color of the floor.