10,346 research outputs found
Bioinspired engineering of exploration systems for NASA and DoD
A new approach called bioinspired engineering of exploration systems (BEES) and its value for solving pressing NASA and DoD needs are described. Insects (for example honeybees and dragonflies) cope remarkably well with their world, despite possessing a brain containing less than 0.01% as many neurons as the human brain. Although most insects have immobile eyes with fixed focus optics and lack stereo vision, they use a number of ingenious, computationally simple strategies for perceiving their world in three dimensions and navigating successfully within it. We are distilling selected insect-inspired strategies to obtain novel solutions for navigation, hazard avoidance, altitude hold, stable flight, terrain following, and gentle deployment of payload. Such functionality provides potential solutions for future autonomous robotic space and planetary explorers. A BEES approach to developing lightweight low-power autonomous flight systems should be useful for flight control of such biomorphic flyers for both NASA and DoD needs. Recent biological studies of mammalian retinas confirm that representations of multiple features of the visual world are systematically parsed and processed in parallel. Features are mapped to a stack of cellular strata within the retina. Each of these representations can be efficiently modeled in semiconductor cellular nonlinear network (CNN) chips. We describe recent breakthroughs in exploring the feasibility of the unique blending of insect strategies of navigation with mammalian visual search, pattern recognition, and image understanding into hybrid biomorphic flyers for future planetary and terrestrial applications. We describe a few future mission scenarios for Mars exploration, uniquely enabled by these newly developed biomorphic flyers
The Penn Jerboa: A Platform for Exploring Parallel Composition of Templates
We have built a 12DOF, passive-compliant legged, tailed biped actuated by
four brushless DC motors. We anticipate that this machine will achieve varied
modes of quasistatic and dynamic balance, enabling a broad range of locomotion
tasks including sitting, standing, walking, hopping, running, turning, leaping,
and more. Achieving this diversity of behavior with a single under-actuated
body, requires a correspondingly diverse array of controllers, motivating our
interest in compositional techniques that promote mixing and reuse of a
relatively few base constituents to achieve a combinatorially growing array of
available choices. Here we report on the development of one important example
of such a behavioral programming method, the construction of a novel monopedal
sagittal plane hopping gait through parallel composition of four decoupled 1DOF
base controllers.
For this example behavior, the legs are locked in phase and the body is
fastened to a boom to restrict motion to the sagittal plane. The platform's
locomotion is powered by the hip motor that adjusts leg touchdown angle in
flight and balance in stance, along with a tail motor that adjusts body shape
in flight and drives energy into the passive leg shank spring during stance.
The motor control signals arise from the application in parallel of four
simple, completely decoupled 1DOF feedback laws that provably stabilize in
isolation four corresponding 1DOF abstract reference plants. Each of these
abstract 1DOF closed loop dynamics represents some simple but crucial specific
component of the locomotion task at hand. We present a partial proof of
correctness for this parallel composition of template reference systems along
with data from the physical platform suggesting these templates are anchored as
evidenced by the correspondence of their characteristic motions with a suitably
transformed image of traces from the physical platform.Comment: Technical Report to Accompany: A. De and D. Koditschek, "Parallel
composition of templates for tail-energized planar hopping," in 2015 IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2015. v2:
Used plain latex article, correct gap radius and specific force/torque
number
Selection of systems to perform extravehicular activities, man and manipulator. Volume 2 - Final report
Technologies for EVA and remote manipulation systems - handbook for systems designer
- …