Six-legged robot tested in ice cube The pictures in this article are all supplied by Shanghai Jiaotong University
On the afternoon of February 18, a special robot "player" made his Winter Olympic debut at the "Ice Cube": curling throwing performance. Only to see a pair of middle legs to support the body, a pair of hind legs pedaling the starter, with a pair of front legs to control the direction of the curling and movement and rotation speed, a hard throw, hit the target.
This curling robot "player" is under the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology National Key Research and Development Program "Science and Technology Winter Olympics", led by Professor Gao Feng of the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and developed by the research team of six-legged curling robot composed of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Shanghai Intelligent Manufacturing Function Platform Co., Ltd., and is the world's first six-legged curling robot that imitates human pedaling, supporting sliding and rotating curling behavior.
"When a person throws curling, one leg supports the body, the other leg pedals the starter, the eyes aim at the target, and the hand controls the speed and direction of the curling, which is a complex decision-making behavior. How to design the structure of the robot according to the behavioral characteristics of human curling; how to identify the dynamic parameters of the ice surface and the robot according to the information of visual and force measurements, so as to predict the trajectory of the robot's sliding and curling movement; how to control the robot's behavior according to the decision-making method of human curling... These are the technical challenges we faced in developing six-legged curling robots. Gao Feng introduced.
The robot looks for a starter to transition from standing to pitching
Humans control the direction and rotation speed of curling with their hands, one leg supports the body, and the other leg pedals the starter - the six-legged robot designed by Shanghai Jiao Tong University has these three behavioral functions of human curling, which is consistent with the division of hands and feet when people throw curling.
Curling is not only a physical competition, but also an intellectual game. Therefore, the research team needs to train the robot according to the behavioral characteristics of human curling, so that the robot can realize the human behavior decision-making mode. In the process of throwing curling, the front legs of the six-legged robot are converted into the function of the human hand to realize the movement of holding the pot and rotating the pot; the knees of the middle legs and the elbow joints of the front legs are compounded into four points to contact the ice surface to form the function of human support legs; the rear legs pedal the starter to realize the function of promoting the robot to accelerate the sliding, in addition, the front legs can control the direction, speed and angular velocity of the curling movement by throwing the pot twice during the robot sliding movement, and realize the precise throwing and hitting functions.
The robot transitions from pitching pots to standing and walking
After the curling action is over, the robot switches from the curling-throwing configuration to the standing configuration, which can walk on the ice and find the starter. The roughness and friction characteristics of the ice surface are obviously affected by the length of time of the production and use of the ice surface, and the robot should identify the friction characteristics of the ice surface through visual and force detection information to establish the dynamic model of the robot and curling, so as to realize the robot motion characteristics planning and accurate curling throwing and hitting.
During the Curling Competition at the Winter Olympics, the robot also performed a curling performance to cheer up the Olympians. In addition, the six-legged curling robot can realize the digitization of curling throwing sports, become the daily training equipment of curling athletes, and can also serve as sparring for athletes to assist athletes in decision-making and planning of curling.