The Natural Robotics Contest: crowdsourced biomimetic design.

Biomimetic and bioinspired design is not only a potent resource for roboticists looking to develop robust engineering systems or understand the natural world. It is also a uniquely accessible entry point into science and technology. Every person on Earth constantly interacts with nature, and most people have an intuitive sense of animal and plant behaviour, even without realizing it. The Natural Robotics Contest is novel piece of science communication that takes advantage of this intuition, and creates an opportunity for anyone with an interest in nature or robotics to submit their idea and have it turned into a real engineering system. In this paper we will discuss the competition's submissions, which show how the public thinks of nature as well as the problems people see as most pressing for engineers to solve. We will then show our design process from the winning submitted concept sketch through to functioning robot, to offer a case study in biomimetic robot design. The winning design is a robotic fish which uses gill structures to filter out microplastics. This was fabricated into an open source robot with a novel 3D printed gill design. By presenting the competition and the winning entry we hope to foster further interest in nature-inspired design, and increase the interplay between nature and engineering in the minds of readers.

Aerial additive manufacturing with multiple autonomous robots.

Additive manufacturing methods1-4 using static and mobile robots are being developed for both on-site construction5-8 and off-site prefabrication9,10. Here we introduce a method of additive manufacturing, referred to as aerial additive manufacturing (Aerial-AM), that utilizes a team of aerial robots inspired by natural builders11 such as wasps who use collective building methods12,13. We present a scalable multi-robot three-dimensional (3D) printing and path-planning framework that enables robot tasks and population size to be adapted to variations in print geometry throughout a building mission. The multi-robot manufacturing framework allows for autonomous three-dimensional printing under human supervision, real-time assessment of printed geometry and robot behavioural adaptation. To validate autonomous Aerial-AM based on the framework, we develop BuilDrones for depositing materials during flight and ScanDrones for measuring the print quality, and integrate a generic real-time model-predictive-control scheme with the Aerial-AM robots. In addition, we integrate a dynamically self-aligning delta manipulator with the BuilDrone to further improve the manufacturing accuracy to five millimetres for printing geometry with precise trajectory requirements, and develop four cementitious-polymeric composite mixtures suitable for continuous material deposition. We demonstrate proof-of-concept prints including a cylinder 2.05 metres high consisting of 72 layers of a rapid-curing insulation foam material and a cylinder 0.18 metres high consisting of 28 layers of structural pseudoplastic cementitious material, a light-trail virtual print of a dome-like geometry, and multi-robot simulations. Aerial-AM allows manufacturing in-flight and offers future possibilities for building in unbounded, at-height or hard-to-access locations.

Anchoring like octopus: biologically inspired soft artificial sucker.

This paper presents a robotic anchoring module, a sensorized mechanism for attachment to the environment that can be integrated into robots to enable or enhance various functions such as robot mobility, remaining on location or its ability to manipulate objects. The body of the anchoring module consists of two portions with a mechanical stiffness transition from hard to soft. The hard portion is capable of containing vacuum pressure used for actuation while the soft portion is highly conformable to create a seal to contact surfaces. The module is integrated with a single sensory unit which exploits a fibre-optic sensing principle to seamlessly measure proximity and tactile information for use in robot motion planning as well as measuring the state of firmness of its anchor. In an experiment, a variable set of physical loads representing the weights of potential robot bodies were attached to the module and its ability to maintain the anchor was quantified under constant and variable vacuum pressure signals. The experiment shows the effectiveness of the module in quantifying the state of firmness of the anchor and discriminating between different amounts of physical loads attached to it. The proposed anchoring module can enable many industrial and medical applications where attachment to environment is of crucial importance for robot control.

Multi-Axis Force/Torque Sensor Based on Simply-Supported Beam and Optoelectronics.

This paper presents a multi-axis force/torque sensor based on simply-supported beam and optoelectronic technology. The sensor's main advantages are: (1) Low power consumption; (2) low-level noise in comparison with conventional methods of force sensing (e.g., using strain gauges); (3) the ability to be embedded into different mechanical structures; (4) miniaturisation; (5) simple manufacture and customisation to fit a wide-range of robot systems; and (6) low-cost fabrication and assembly of sensor structure. For these reasons, the proposed multi-axis force/torque sensor can be used in a wide range of application areas including medical robotics, manufacturing, and areas involving human-robot interaction. This paper shows the application of our concept of a force/torque sensor to flexible continuum manipulators: A cylindrical MIS (Minimally Invasive Surgery) robot, and includes its design, fabrication, and evaluation tests.

Evaluation of Pseudo-Haptic Interactions with Soft Objects in Virtual Environments.

This paper proposes a pseudo-haptic feedback method conveying simulated soft surface stiffness information through a visual interface. The method exploits a combination of two feedback techniques, namely visual feedback of soft surface deformation and control of the indenter avatar speed, to convey stiffness information of a simulated surface of a soft object in virtual environments. The proposed method was effective in distinguishing different sizes of virtual hard nodules integrated into the simulated soft bodies. To further improve the interactive experience, the approach was extended creating a multi-point pseudo-haptic feedback system. A comparison with regards to (a) nodule detection sensitivity and (b) elapsed time as performance indicators in hard nodule detection experiments to a tablet computer incorporating vibration feedback was conducted. The multi-point pseudo-haptic interaction is shown to be more time-efficient than the single-point pseudo-haptic interaction. It is noted that multi-point pseudo-haptic feedback performs similarly well when compared to a vibration-based feedback method based on both performance measures elapsed time and nodule detection sensitivity. This proves that the proposed method can be used to convey detailed haptic information for virtual environmental tasks, even subtle ones, using either a computer mouse or a pressure sensitive device as an input device. This pseudo-haptic feedback method provides an opportunity for low-cost simulation of objects with soft surfaces and hard inclusions, as, for example, occurring in ever more realistic video games with increasing emphasis on interaction with the physical environment and minimally invasive surgery in the form of soft tissue organs with embedded cancer nodules. Hence, the method can be used in many low-budget applications where haptic sensation is required, such as surgeon training or video games, either using desktop computers or portable devices, showing reasonably high fidelity in conveying stiffness perception to the user.

Embedded electro-conductive yarn for shape sensing of soft robotic manipulators.

Flexible soft and stiffness-controllable surgical manipulators enhance the manoeuvrability of surgical tools during Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), as opposed to conventional rigid laparoscopic instruments. These flexible and soft robotic systems allow bending around organs, navigating through complex anatomical pathways inside the human body and interacting inherently safe with its soft environment. Shape sensing in such systems is a challenge and one essential requirement for precise position feedback control of soft robots. This paper builds on our previous work integrating multiple optical fibres into a soft manipulator to estimate the robot's pose using light intensity modulation. Here, we present an enhanced version of our embedded bending/shape sensor based on electro-conductive yarn. The new system is miniaturised and able to measure bending behaviour as well as elongation. The integrated yarn material is helically wrapped around an elastic strap and protected inside a 1.5mm outer-diameter stretchable pipe. Three of these resulting stretch sensors are integrated in the periphery of a pneumatically actuated soft manipulator for direct measurement of the actuation chamber lengths. The capability of the sensing system in measuring the bending curvature and elongation of the arm is evaluated.

A continuum body force sensor designed for flexible surgical robotics devices.

This paper presents a novel three-axis force sensor based on optical photo interrupters and integrated with the robot arm STIFF-FLOP (STIFFness controllable Flexible and Learnable Manipulator for Surgical Operations) to measure external interacting forces and torques. The ring-shape bio-compatible sensor presented here embeds the distributed actuation and sensing system of the STIFF-FLOP manipulator and is applicable to the geometry of its structure as well to the structure of any other similar soft robotic manipulator. Design and calibration procedures of the device are introduced: experimental results allow defining a stiffness sensor matrix for real-time estimation of force and torque components and confirm the usefulness of the proposed optical sensing approach.

Swimming like algae: biomimetic soft artificial cilia.

Cilia are used effectively in a wide variety of biological systems from fluid transport to thrust generation. Here, we present the design and implementation of artificial cilia, based on a biomimetic planar actuator using soft-smart materials. This actuator is modelled on the cilia movement of the alga Volvox, and represents the cilium as a piecewise constant-curvature robotic actuator that enables the subsequent direct translation of natural articulation into a multi-segment ionic polymer metal composite actuator. It is demonstrated how the combination of optimal segmentation pattern and biologically derived per-segment driving signals reproduce natural ciliary motion. The amenability of the artificial cilia to scaling is also demonstrated through the comparison of the Reynolds number achieved with that of natural cilia.