Project Opiliones

Members:

Advisor

Stephen E. Levinson, selevins

Mentor

Luke A. Wendt, wendt1

Mentees

Shivani Iyer, siyer10

Shivam Bharuka, bharuka2

Rebecca Cole, rjcole2

Emily Dixon, edixon4

Sahil Kumar, skumar36

Shanay Jhaveri, sjhaver2

George Moffitt, gmoffit2

Volunteers

Constantine (Dean) Roros, roros2

Amish Ralhan, amish.ralhan.12@ucl.ac.uk

Tara Tripp, ttripp2

Opiliones – The Harvestmen

Lightweight Elastic-Tendon Driven Legs
with Sensor Rich Body

Project Goals:

General

·         Make robotics more accessible to undergraduate research.
·         Emphasize fast build time, e.g., modular hardware solutions (avoid custom hardware)
·         Emphasize fast code time, e.g. user friendly IDEs, APIs and Libraries
·         Emphasize low cost, e.g., Arduino based designs
·         Emphasize low complexity
·         Build sensor rich systems

Specific to Opiliones

·         Implement advanced autonomous choreography, i.e., intelligent walking gaits driven by user input that plan around sensor feedback
·         Build a durable platform for research in embodied cognition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition

Optional

·         Possibly offering a new course in the ECE curriculum:

ECE ??? – Robot Dynamics & Control with a Lab

There are a handful of robotics and control courses offered to undergrads here at UIUC such as ECE 470 – Introduction to Robotics (which focuses primarily on coordinate systems and configuration space), GE 423 – Mechatronics (which focuses primarily on wheeled robots), and ECE 486 – Control Systems (which introduces most of the necessary tools for linear control).  However, there is no course (with the exception of maybe senior design) that then combines this material into a focused application.  In particular, there is no coursework covering the nonlinear modeling and control aspect of robotic systems, e.g., Chapters 6-10 of Robot Modeling and Control by M. Spong, S. Hutchinson and M. Vidyasagar.  If an additional course were taught, what would the accompanying lab look like?  Being able to rapidly build a skeletal structure and control it with low cost motors, sensors and microcontrollers, the student could be provided with a kit and given the task of building a robotic system that implements the subject matter.  The specific application maybe be flexible to the students interests, but would require some novel aspect.

Inspiration Source 1:
Hand Built Robotics
(no machine shop or plastic printers required)

A composite construction that uses thermoplastic (which can be worked by hand), servos, tendons, elastic, nuts and bolts provides a fast, cheap and low complexity solution to rapid prototyping of robots.  Capable of generating complex actuation.

Instructables/Hand Built Humanoid Robot

Inspiration Source 2:   

Hexapods

There are many designs readily available.  With 4 legs and up, a stable triangular basis can be present at all times.  With 6 legs, walking solutions involving alternating triangular patterns become very easy to implement. 

Instructables/Hexapod-Robot-based-on-FPGA

Instructables/Arduino-Hexapod-Avoider-Robot
letsmakerobots

Inspiration Source 3:   

Octopods

With 8 legs, even more complex choreography becomes possible!