Autonomous Environmental Transitions of an Amphibious Turtle-Inspired Robot
Abstract
Traversing the shorelinea complex, dynamic environmentis essential to many Navy missions. While a robot might be well-suited to locomotion in relatively stable open water or on dry land, when crossing between water and land a robot is confronted with high-energy perturbations such as crashing waves and fluidized sediment. Previously, we took inspiration from the similar but distinct shapes of two related groups of animals, sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea) and land tortoises (family Testudinidae), to create a morphing limb system that can transition from a flipper optimized for swimming in water to a leg optimized for walking on land. The morphing limbs were attached to a turtle- and tortoise-inspired robot body to successfully achieve aquatic and terrestrial locomotion, but questions about how and when to adapt limb shape and gait during environmental transitions remain. This proposed project represents a logical continuation, where the primary goal is to converge on optimal limb shape-gait pairings as a function of shoreline variables, such as wave energy, water-to-land incline, and land substrate, during environmental transitions. Leveraging our amphibious platform, we aim to understand when and how limb shape and control policy adaptation should occur in the face of environmental perturbations, and distill insights into autonomous transition policies. Our morphing limb approach exploits morphological and behavioral adaptations to enable multi-environment locomotion with minimized overallsystem power consumption. We expect this approach will result in extended operating times and smaller power requirements for autonomous amphibious robots that can traverse the littoral zone.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 05, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112417
Entities
People
- Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- Yale University