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Juan Pablo Carbajal

Quantifying M.C.Contents

– Introduction

– WandaX: Environmental Energy Harvesting

– Puppy: Agent-Environment Interaction, Efficiency

– Chain Robot: Passive Folding and AI

– Self-Assembly: Passive Assembly and AI

Underlying Concepts

– Reproducibility

– Parametric Robots

– Minimal Approach: “Simple not simpler”

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The A.I. Lab (aka the coolest place)

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The A.I. Lab: Some Philosophy

The synthetic approach

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The A.I. Lab: Some PhilosophyDesign Principles

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Background

1999 - 2004

2004 - 2006

2008 - 2009

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Active Projects

– WandaX: Environmental Energy Harvesting.

– Puppy: Agent-Environment Interaction, Efficiency.

– Chain Robot: Passive Folding and AI.

– Self-Assembly: Passive Assembly and AI.

4 projects will be presented here. Each project has its own objective but all of them share a common principle:

What can morphology do for us?

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WandaX: Energy Harvesting“ ... live trout can Kármán gait temporarily without any axial muscle

activity. Consequently, dead trout towed behind a cylinder can generate thrust passively

and move upstream on a slack line when the natural resonance of their body allows for synchronization with vortices.”

A review of fish swimming mechanics and behavior in altered flows

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2007) 362, 1973-1993. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2082

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WandaX: Energy HarvestingIn collaboration with Marc Ziegler (the robot builder) and Tobi Delbrück.

Video !

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WandaX: Energy Harvesting

D. N. BEAL, F. S. HOVER, M. S. TRIANTAFYLLOU, J. C. LIAO and G. V. LAUDER (2006). Passive propulsion in vortex wakes. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 549 , pp 385-402doi:10.1017/S0022112005007925

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Puppy: Gait EfficiencyIn collaboration with Matěj Hoffmann (the great Logician) and Harold

Martinez Salazar.

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Puppy: Gait Efficiency● Gait as an emergent behavior from interacting local controllers.

The body of the robot and the environment act as the medium where information is transferred (with processing).

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Puppy: Gait Efficiency

Video !

Video !

● The legs of the robot are considered transducers and we focus on their design. Get the maximum out of morphology.

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Puppy: Gait EfficiencyIO Spring Filtered

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Puppy: Gait EfficiencyAfter Jump

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Puppy: Gait EfficiencyIterated Map

● ~ 20% compression.

● 80 kg

● ~3 Hz

● Fixed landing angle

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Puppy: Gait Efficiency

Video !

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Puppy & WandaX

● Morphology as a tool to reduce computation and power consumption.

● Parametric robots used as experimental platforms. Reproducibility allows repeated experiments.

● Strong support from simulations.

● Once a configuration produces satisfactory results a final version of the robot is built.

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Chain Robot: Passive FoldingIn collaboration with Shuhei Miyashita, Ezequiel Pozzo and Tomás

Guozden.

● Computational simulations to study the basin of attraction of each configuration.

● Quantify the effect of morphological (shape and magnet position) parameters on the basin of attraction measure, and in the creation and destruction of configurations.

● Hundreds of possible configurations each one with a potential functionality.

● Passive folding induced by magnets.

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Chain Robot: Passive Folding

● Possible folded states depend strongly on shape.

● How can we quantify this effect? Idea: Yield ratio.

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Chain Robot: Passive Folding

● Actuation as perturbation allowing prohibited transitions.

● Exploration? Learning? Sensory-motor coordination?

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Chain Robot: Passive Folding

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Chain Robot: Passive Folding● How do we implement function/behavior?

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S.A.: Passive AssemblyIn collaboration with Shuhei Miyashita (Samurai Bushidooo!) and

Marco Kessler.

Video !

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S.A.: Passive Assembly

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S.A.: Passive Assembly

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S.A.: Passive Assembly

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S.A.: Passive Assembly

Noise level

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Chain Robot & S.A.

● Macroscopic systems can be studied with the same tools used with microscopic ones.

● Morphology plays a fundamental role in the behavior of the system.

● Exploiting morphology and the natural dynamics of the system can produce extreme interesting behavior with very simple “brains”.

● Important engineering challenges like the development of novel actuators.

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Questions

Thank you very much

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