From The School of Computer Science
At
3.14.23
Aaron Aupperlee
412-268-9068
aaupperlee@cmu.edu
Highly Dynamic Bistable Soft Actuators Allow for Varied Locomotion
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have created soft robots that can seamlessly shift from walking to swimming.
Most animals can quickly transition from walking to jumping to crawling to swimming if needed without reconfiguring or making major adjustments.
Most robots cannot. But researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created soft robots that can seamlessly shift from walking to swimming, for example, or crawling to rolling.
“We were inspired by nature to develop a robot that can perform different tasks and adapt to its environment without adding actuators or complexity,” said Dinesh K. Patel, a post-doctoral fellow in the Morphing Matter Lab in the School of Computer Science’sHuman-Computer Interaction Institute. “Our bistable actuator is simple, stable and durable, and lays the foundation for future work on dynamic, reconfigurable soft robotics.”
The bistable actuator is made of 3D-printed soft rubber containing shape-memory alloy springs that react to electrical currents by contracting, which causes the actuator to bend. The team used this bistable motion to change the actuator or robot’s shape. Once the robot changes shape, it is stable until another electrical charge morphs it back to its previous configuration.
“Matching how animals transition from walking to swimming to crawling to jumping is a grand challenge for bio-inspired and soft robotics,” said Carmel Majidi, a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department in CMU’s College of Engineering.
For example, one robot the team created has four curved actuators attached to the corners of a cellphone-sized body made of two bistable actuators. On land, the curved actuators act as legs, allowing the robot to walk. In the water, the bistable actuators change the robot’s shape, putting the curved actuators in an ideal position to act as propellers so it can swim.
“You need to have legs to walk on land, and you need to have a propeller to swim in the water. Building a robot with separate systems designed for each environment adds complexity and weight,” said Xiaonan Huang, an assistant professor of robotics at the University of Michigan and Majidi’s former Ph.D. student. “We use the same system for both environments to create an efficient robot.”
The team created two other robots: one that can crawl and jump, and one inspired by caterpillars and pill bugs that can crawl and roll.
The actuators require only a hundred millisecond of electrical charge to change their shape, and they are durable. The team had a person ride a bicycle over one of the actuators a few times and changed their robots’ shapes hundreds of times to demonstrate durability.
In the future, the robots could be used in rescue situations or to interact with sea animals or coral. Using heat-activated springs in the actuators could open up applications in environmental monitoring, haptics, and reconfigurable electronics and communication.
“There are many interesting and exciting scenarios where energy-efficient and versatile robots like this could be useful,” said Lining Yao, the Cooper-Siegel Assistant Professor in the HCII and head of the Morphing Matter Lab.
The team’s research was featured on the cover of the January 2023 issue of Advanced Materials Technologies [below]. The research team included co-first authors Patel and Huang; Yao; Majidi; Yichi Luo, a mechanical engineering master’s student at CMU; and Mrunmayi Mungekar and M. Khalid Jawed, both from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Advanced Materials Technologies
From the science paper
Figure 1
A) Schematic view of bistable actuator, B) Transition of bistable actuator from State I to State II and vice-versa with respect to free energy, C) Picture of bistable actuator triggered from state I to state II, Schematic (Rendering image) of reconfigurable multimodal and amphibious soft robots: D) a Amphibious bot and E) a Caterpillar-inspired robot.
Figure 2
Characterization of the bistable actuator. A) Initial curavture for experimental and analytic model, B) Transition force (inset shows setup for transition force), C) Active force under different activation time from 50 to 300 ms as electrical input and D) Blocking force for bistable actuator on each state with different prestretch (λp) ranging from 2.4 to 3.0, E) A bistable actuator hits the ping pong ball with (i) 1.0 and (ii) 2.8 prestretch and F) Velocity change for bistable actuator (with prestretch (λp) = 2.8) and ping-pong ball.
For further illustrations see the science paper.
See the full article here .
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The School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a school for computer science established in 1988. It has been consistently ranked among the top computer science programs over the decades. As of 2022 U.S. News & World Report ranks the graduate program as tied for second with Stanford University and The University of California-Berkeley. It is ranked second in the United States on Computer Science Open Rankings, which combines scores from multiple independent rankings.
In the past 15 years, researchers from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science have made developments in the fields of algorithms, artificial intelligence, computer networks, distributed systems, parallel processing, programming languages, computational biology, robotics, language technologies, human–computer interaction and software engineering.
SCS today
Organizational units
Computational Biology Department (CBD)
Computer Science Department (CSD)
Human–Computer Interaction Institute (HCII)
Institute for Software Research (ISR): Its research and education focus is on software systems, which spans not only classical software engineering but also topics such as economics, social and organizational issues, public policy, and privacy. ISR is a distinct entity from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). SEI is a FFRDC, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and does not offer educational programs.
Language Technologies Institute (LTI)
Machine Learning Department (MLD)
Robotics Institute (RI)
Doctoral programs
PhD in Computational Biology (joint with University of Pittsburgh)
PhD in Computer Science
PhD in Computer Science/Dual Degree Portugal
PhD in Computer Science/Neural Basis of Cognition
PhD in Human-Computer Interaction
PhD in Language and Information Technologies
PhD in Language and Information Technologies/Dual Degree Portugal
PhD in Machine Learning
PhD in Machine Learning/Neural Basis of Cognition
Joint PhD in Statistics & Machine Learning
PhD in Robotics
PhD in Robotics/Neural Basis of Cognition
PhD in Societal Computing
PhD in Software Engineering
Joint PhD in Statistics & Machine Learning
Academic masters
Masters in Computational Biology
Masters in Computer Science
Masters in Language Technologies
Masters in Machine Learning
Masters in Robotics
Masters in Robotic Systems Development
Professional masters
Masters in Product Management (jointly with Tepper)
Masters of Science in Computational Data Science (MCDS)[
Masters of Science in Artificial Intelligence and Innovation (MSAII)
Master of Science in Music and Technology
Masters in Biotechnology Innovation and Computation
Masters in Entertainment Technology
Masters in Human-Computer Interaction
Masters in Educational Technology and Applied Learning Science (METALS)
Masters of Information Technology in Ebusiness Technology
Masters in Software Engineering
Masters in Software Engineering Management
MBA Track in Technology Leadership (joint SCS/Tepper program)
Master of Science in Information Technology in Robotics Technology (MSIT/RT)
Master of Science in Information Technology—Privacy Engineering (MSIT-PE)
Masters of Science in Information Technology—Embedded Software Engineering
Masters of Science in Information Technology—Software Engineering
Master in Business Administration/Master of Software Engineering
Master in Intelligent Information Systems (MIIS)
Undergraduate programs
Bachelor of Computer Science and Arts
Bachelor of Science in Computational Biology
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence
Bachelor of Science in Human-Computer Interaction
Bachelor of Science in Music and Technology
Minor in Computer Science
Minor in Language Technologies
Minor in Robotics
Minor in Software Engineering
Minor in Neural Computation
Minor in Human-Computer Interaction
Minor in Machine Learning
Minor in Computational Biology
Additional Major in Computer Science
Additional Major in Robotics
Additional Major in Human-Computer Interaction
Fifth Year Masters in Computer Science (Carnegie Mellon, CS undergrads only)
MBA – Computer Science 3-2 Program (Carnegie Mellon, CS undergrads only)
Carnegie Mellon University is a global research university with more than 12,000 students, 95,000 alumni, and 5,000 faculty and staff.
Carnegie Mellon University has been a birthplace of innovation since its founding in 1900.
Today, we are a global leader bringing groundbreaking ideas to market and creating successful startup businesses.
Our award-winning faculty members are renowned for working closely with students to solve major scientific, technological and societal challenges. We put a strong emphasis on creating things—from art to robots. Our students are recruited by some of the world’s most innovative companies.
We have campuses in Pittsburgh, Qatar and Silicon Valley, and degree-granting programs around the world, including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America.
The Carnegie Mellon University was established by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools, the university became the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912 and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, formerly a part of the The University of Pittsburgh. Since then, the university has operated as a single institution.
The Carnegie Mellon University has seven colleges and independent schools, including the College of Engineering, College of Fine Arts, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mellon College of Science, Tepper School of Business, Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, and the School of Computer Science. The Carnegie Mellon University has its main campus located 3 miles (5 km) from Downtown Pittsburgh, and the university also has over a dozen degree-granting locations in six continents, including degree-granting campuses in Qatar and Silicon Valley.
Past and present faculty and alumni include 20 Nobel Prize laureates, 13 Turing Award winners, 23 Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 22 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , 79 Members of the National Academies, 124 Emmy Award winners, 47 Tony Award laureates, and 10 Academy Award winners. Carnegie Mellon enrolls 14,799 students from 117 countries and employs 1,400 faculty members.
Research
Carnegie Mellon University is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity”. For the 2006 fiscal year, the Carnegie Mellon University spent $315 million on research. The primary recipients of this funding were the School of Computer Science ($100.3 million), the Software Engineering Institute ($71.7 million), the College of Engineering ($48.5 million), and the Mellon College of Science ($47.7 million). The research money comes largely from federal sources, with a federal investment of $277.6 million. The federal agencies that invest the most money are the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, which contribute 26% and 23.4% of the total Carnegie Mellon University research budget respectively.
The recognition of Carnegie Mellon University as one of the best research facilities in the nation has a long history—as early as the 1987 Federal budget Carnegie Mellon University was ranked as third in the amount of research dollars with $41.5 million, with only Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University receiving more research funds from the Department of Defense.
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a joint effort between Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, and Westinghouse Electric Company. Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center was founded in 1986 by its two scientific directors, Dr. Ralph Roskies of the University of Pittsburgh and Dr. Michael Levine of Carnegie Mellon. Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a leading partner in the TeraGrid, The National Science Foundation’s cyberinfrastructure program.
Scarab lunar rover is being developed by the RI.
The Robotics Institute (RI) is a division of the School of Computer Science and considered to be one of the leading centers of robotics research in the world. The Field Robotics Center (FRC) has developed a number of significant robots, including Sandstorm and H1ghlander, which finished second and third in the DARPA Grand Challenge, and Boss, which won the DARPA Urban Challenge. The Robotics Institute has partnered with a spinoff company, Astrobotic Technology Inc., to land a CMU robot on the moon by 2016 in pursuit of the Google Lunar XPrize. The robot, known as Andy, is designed to explore lunar pits, which might include entrances to caves. The RI is primarily sited at Carnegie Mellon University ‘s main campus in Newell-Simon hall.
The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University, with offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Arlington, Virginia, and Frankfurt, Germany. The SEI publishes books on software engineering for industry, government and military applications and practices. The organization is known for its Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), which identify essential elements of effective system and software engineering processes and can be used to rate the level of an organization’s capability for producing quality systems. The SEI is also the home of CERT/CC, the federally funded computer security organization. The CERT Program’s primary goals are to ensure that appropriate technology and systems management practices are used to resist attacks on networked systems and to limit damage and ensure continuity of critical services subsequent to attacks, accidents, or failures.
The Human–Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) is a division of the School of Computer Science and is considered one of the leading centers of human–computer interaction research, integrating computer science, design, social science, and learning science. Such interdisciplinary collaboration is the hallmark of research done throughout the university.
The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) is another unit of the School of Computer Science and is famous for being one of the leading research centers in the area of language technologies. The primary research focus of the institute is on machine translation, speech recognition, speech synthesis, information retrieval, parsing and information extraction. Until 1996, the institute existed as the Center for Machine Translation that was established in 1986. From 1996 onwards, it started awarding graduate degrees and the name was changed to Language Technologies Institute.
Carnegie Mellon is also home to the Carnegie School of management and economics. This intellectual school grew out of the Tepper School of Business in the 1950s and 1960s and focused on the intersection of behavioralism and management. Several management theories, most notably bounded rationality and the behavioral theory of the firm, were established by Carnegie School management scientists and economists.
Carnegie Mellon also develops cross-disciplinary and university-wide institutes and initiatives to take advantage of strengths in various colleges and departments and develop solutions in critical social and technical problems. To date, these have included the Cylab Security and Privacy Institute, the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, the Neuroscience Institute (formerly known as BrainHub), the Simon Initiative, and the Disruptive Healthcare Technology Institute.
Carnegie Mellon has made a concerted effort to attract corporate research labs, offices, and partnerships to the Pittsburgh campus. Apple Inc., Intel, Google, Microsoft, Disney, Facebook, IBM, General Motors, Bombardier Inc., Yahoo!, Uber, Tata Consultancy Services, Ansys, Boeing, Robert Bosch GmbH, and the Rand Corporation have established a presence on or near campus. In collaboration with Intel, Carnegie Mellon has pioneered research into claytronics.
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