First steps for Hector the robot stick insect
A research team at Bielefeld University has
succeeded in teaching the only robot of its kind in the world how to walk. Its
first steps have been recorded in a video. You can watch them in Bielefeld
University's latest posting on 'research_tv'. The robot is called Hector, and
its construction is modelled on a stick insect. Inspired by the insect, Hector
has passive elastic joints and an ultralight exoskeleton. What makes it unique
is that it is also equipped with a great number of sensors and it functions according
to a biologically inspired decentralized reactive control concept: the Walknet.
The walking robot has been built by the
Biomechatronics research group. In the future, Hector should serve as a
platform for biologists and roboticists to test hypotheses about animal
locomotion. One major aspect will be the fusion of large amounts of data from
sensors so that the robot can walk more autonomously than before. A further key
issue will be the optimal coordination of movements by a robot with elastic drives.
'The way that the elasticity in Hector's drives acts
is comparable to the way that muscles act in biological systems,' says
Professor Dr. Axel Schneider. He is heading the Biomechatronics research group
and is coordinating the CITEC project together with Professor Dr. Volker Dürr
from the Department of Biological Cybernetics at the Faculty of Biology.
Schneider and his team developed the elastic joint drives themselves. Hector
has 18 such joints. Through the biologically inspired elasticity of the drives,
Hector can adapt flexibly to the properties of the surfaces over which it is
walking.
'However, elasticity alone is not enough for Hector
to be able to walk through a natural environment containing obstacles,' says
Schneider. 'The challenge was to develop a control system that would coordinate
the movements of its legs in difficult surroundings as well.' Schneider's
colleague Jan Paskarbeit was responsible for developing and building the robot.
He also programmed a virtual version of Hector in order to test experimental
control approaches without damaging the robot. 'All sub-systems have to
communicate with each other for the robot to walk without any difficulties,'
says Paskarbeit. 'Otherwise, for example, Hector might have too many legs in
the air at one time, become unstable, and fall over. Moreover, the legs have to
be able to react to collisions with obstacles. We have dealt with this by
implementing a reflex behaviour for climbing over objects,' explains the CITEC
researcher.
At the CITEC Center of Excellence, eight research
groups have joined together for three years in a large-scale project to
optimize Hector. The scientists come from the fields of computer science,
biology, physics, and engineering. Currently, the researchers are working on
equipping Hector's front section with far-range sensors as in a head. They
already have a prototype with two lateral cameras and two tactile feelers. Both
the visual and the tactile systems are inpired by those of insects -- their
work spaces and their resolutions are similar to those of animal models. 'A
major challenge will now be to find an efficient way to integrate these
far-range sensors with the posture sensors and joint control sensors. Hector is
the ideal research platform on which to do this,' says Volker Dürr.
The research on Hector is the outcome of a series of
earlier research projects. For example, the functional parts for Hector were
manufactured in the CITEC project 'MULERO' and in the project 'ELAN'. 'ELAN'
was financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In the EU
project 'EMICAB', Axel Schneider's and Volker Dürr's teams collaborated with
three further European teams engaged in research on intelligent motion control
in insects and robots. For Dürr and his team, this involved evaluating motion
sequences in stick insects in order to understand the control mechanisms in the
insect's nervous system and transfer these to computer models. A further stage
in the construction of the robot was the design and manufacture of the robot
body. A green and white design model was developed with designers from the
Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and engineers at the Leibniz Institute
of Polymer Research in Dresden. The casing of the robot is now black, because
it is made of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) to save weight.
Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141216112921.htm
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Universitaet Bielefeld. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length.
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