Project description
Innovative design for soft robots with embodied functionality
Natural and artificial organisms possess four functionalities – actuation, energy storage, sensing and logic – that are essential for their survival. Conventional robots typically have these functions localised in separate components made of rigid materials. On the other hand, soft robots are made of flexible materials, but their localisation of functions restricts their autonomous operation and intelligent behaviour. In this context, the EU-funded ILUMIS project will create soft robots with ‘functional embodiment’ that involves distributing the four functions throughout the body. This new approach involves transitioning from a traditional robotic architecture to a fluidic network architecture. The project’s outcomes have the potential to impact a wide range of applications, including surgical microrobots.
Objective
Actuation, energy storage, sensing, and logic are four functionalities of both natural and artificial organisms, giving them the ability to thrive in their environment. The blueprint of conventional robots localizes these functionalities in discrete components supported by rigid materials. However, in soft robots that consist of compliant materials, localization of functionality severely limits autonomous operation and intelligent behaviour. This limitation is the result of the functional architecture, not of the used materials. Alternatively and as demonstrated in nature by the common octopus, the distribution of these four functionalities throughout the body allows to overcome these limitations. This concept of ‘functional embodiment’ is currently non-existing in soft robotics. ILUMIS will create soft robots with embodied functionality by transitioning from a conventional robotic architecture to a fluidic network architecture. Further, by incorporating nonlinearities in all the network elements, the global system acts as a state machine, meaning that the output not only depends on the input, but also on its internal state. How to navigate this state space will be encoded within the nonlinearities, creating embodied logic. Energy and actuation are embodied and intricately linked to the elastic deformations of the components in the network, powering the actions of the soft robot. By creating network components that are sensitive to triggers from the environment, embodied sensing emerges, leading to truly interactive fluidic state machines. ILUMIS will overcome the main challenges of inverse design, where a desired behaviour requires the optimization of a network of nonlinear structures. Thereby ILUMIS will create a new blueprint for soft robotic design with embodied functionality that closes the gap with nature’s soft organisms. This knowledge will impact applications ranging from surgical micro-robots and exploration robots to haptic interfaces for virtual reality.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringroboticssoft robotics
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
3000 Leuven
Belgium