Abstract
Soft spherical tensegrity robots are novel steerable mobile robotic platforms that are compliant, lightweight, and robust. The geometry of these robots is suitable for rolling locomotion, and they achieve this motion by properly deforming their structures using carefully chosen actuation strategies. The objective of this work is to consolidate and add to our research to date on methods for realizing rolling locomotion of spherical tensegrity robots. To predict the deformation of tensegrity structures when their member forces are varied, we introduce a modified version of the dynamic relaxation technique and apply it to our tensegrity robots. In addition, we present two techniques to find desirable deformations and actuation strategies that would result in robust rolling locomotion of the robots. The first one relies on the greedy search that can quickly find solutions, and the second one uses a multigeneration Monte Carlo method that can find suboptimal solutions with a higher quality. The methods are illustrated and validated both in simulation and with our hardware robots, which show that our methods are viable means of realizing robust and steerable rolling locomotion of spherical tensegrity robots.
Highlights
The term tensegrity was first coined by Fuller[1] as a portmanteau of tensional integrity
We first introduced the concept of a step as a segment of rolling locomotion and classified it into different categories based on the geometry of the spherical tensegrity robots considered in this work
We provided in detail the method to predict the deformations of spherical tensegrity robots given actuation commands based on the dynamic relaxation technique with kinetic damping
Summary
The term tensegrity was first coined by Fuller[1] as a portmanteau of tensional integrity. Tensegrity structures have several unique features that distinguish themselves from other structures.[2,3] First, tensegrity structures are in general lightweight as they have minimal mass distribution in terms of load bearing since most of its internal volume is empty and the material is placed only on its load paths. This allows efficient use of material and results in a reduced weight of the structure for a given stiffness. These tensegrity robots constitute examples of soft robots that are characterized by elastic deformability attributable to the extensive use of deformable matter with little or no rigid material.[4]
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