Morphological adaptation in an energy efficient vibration-based robot

Morphological computation is a concept relevant to robots made of soft and elastic materials. It states that robot's rich dynamics can be exploited to generate desirable behaviors, which can be altered when their morphology is adapted accordingly. This paper presents a low-cost robot made of elastic curved beam driven by a motor, with morphological computation and adaptation ability. Simply by changing robot's shape and the rotating frequency of the motor that vibrates the robot's body, the robot is able to shift its behavior from showing a tendency to slide when it needs to perform tasks like going under confined space, to have more tendency to hop diagonally forward when the robot stands upright. It will also be shown that based on the proposed mechanism, the energy efficiency of the robot locomotion can be maximized

Understanding the Interaction between Older Adults and Soft Service Robots: Insights from Robotics and the Technology Acceptance Model

As the world’s population increasingly ages, we need technological solutions such as robotics technology to assist older adults in their daily tasks. In this regard, we examine soft service robots’ potential to help care for the elderly. To do so, we developed and tested the degree to which they would accept a soft service robot that catered to their functional needs in the home environment. We used embodied artificial to develop an in-house teleoperated human-sized soft service robot that performed object-retrieval tasks with a soft gripper. Using an extended technology acceptance model as a theoretical lens, we conducted a study with 79 older adults to examine the degree to which they would accept a soft service robot in the home environment. We found perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and subjective norms as significant predictors that positively influenced older adults’ intention to adopt and use soft service robots. However, we also found that perceived anxiety and perceived likability did not significantly predict older adults’ intention to adopt and use soft service robots. We discuss the implications, limitations, and future research directions that arise from these findings

Power-efficient adaptive behavior through a shape-changing elastic robot

The adaptive morphology of a robot, such as shape adaptation, plays a significant role in adapting its behaviors. Shape adaptation should ideally be achieved without considerable cost, like the power required to deform the robot’s body, and therefore, it is reasonably considered as the last resort in classical rigid robots. However, the last decade has seen an increasing interest in soft robots: robots that can achieve deformability through their inherent material properties or structural compliance. Nevertheless, the dynamics of these types of robots is often complex and therefore it is difficult to substantiate whether the cost like the required power for changing its shape will be worthwhile to achieve the desired behavior. This article presents an approach in the development and analysis of a shape-changing locomoting robot, which relies on the ability of elastic beams to deform and vibrate. Through a proper use of elastic materials and the robot’s vibration-based dynamics, it will be shown both analytically and experimentally how shape adaptation can be designed such that it leads to desirable behaviors, with better power efficiency compared to when the robot solely relies on changing its control input. The results encourage emerging direction in robotics that investigates approaches to change robots’ behaviors through their adaptive morphology. </jats:p