Aquatic creatures exhibit remarkable adaptations of their body to efficiently interact with the surrounding fluid. The tight coupling between their morphology, motion, and the environment are highly complex but serves as a valuable example when creating biomimetic structures in soft robotic swimmers. We focus on the use of asymmetry in structures to aid thrust generation and maneuverability. Designs of structures with asymmetric profiles are explored so that we can use morphology to `shape' the thrust generation. We propose combining simple simulation with automatic data-driven methods to explore their interactions with the fluid. The asymmetric structure with its co-optimized morphology and controller is able to produce 2.5 times the useful thrust compared to a baseline symmetric structure. Furthermore these asymmetric feather-like arms are validated on a robotic system capable of forward swimming motion while the same robot fitted with a plain feather is not able to move forward.
翻译:水生生物在身体上表现出惊人的适应性,以与周围的流体有效互动。 它们的形态、运动和环境之间的紧密结合非常复杂,但在软机器人游泳器中创建生物模拟结构时是一个有价值的例子。 我们注重在结构上使用不对称来帮助推力生成和机动性。 探索了具有不对称特征的结构设计,以便我们可以使用形态学来“形状”推力生成。 我们提议将简单的模拟与自动数据驱动的方法结合起来,以探索它们与流体的相互作用。 与其共同优化的形态和控制器相比,不对称的结构能够产生2.5倍于基线对称结构的有用推力。 此外,这些不对称的羽形武器在机器人系统上得到验证,能够向前移动游泳运动,而装有普通羽毛的机器人则无法向前移动。