When algorithmic intelligence and structural intelligence are combined, what will AI robots look like? When they are in different environments, can they transform autonomously, interact with the environment, and actively solve problems? Recently, the reporter saw a transformant AI robot that can switch freely between three different biological forms in the Robotics Research Institute of Southern University of Science and Technology, and the future development of embodied intelligence has a clearer understanding from then on.
The mutant robot takes the shape of a puppy. Photo by Shenzhen Press Group reporter Zhang Xijun
Transformers opened up a new field and won the highest award for international mechanical design
A few days ago, a video of scientific research achievements attracted attention. In the video, a new type of bio-like robot can transform different biological forms such as reptiles, arthropods and mammals without disassembling and reassembling, sometimes shrinking into a ball, sometimes in the shape of a puppy, a spider, and can burrow into narrow passages and climb obstacles such as stairs. Some netizens said: "This is a new generation of Transformers", "'Look at my seventy-two changes' has been realized by SUSTech". With curiosity about transformant robots, recently, the reporter came to the Institute of Robotics of SUSTech to learn about the birth of "Transformers" from Dai Jiansheng, academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering, academician of the European Academy of Sciences, IEEE and ASME fellow, chair professor of the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering of SUSTech, and dean of the Institute of Robotics.
The metamorphic robot is composed of a variety of institutional configurations based on the metamorphic cell theory. The metamorphic mechanism refers to the mechanism that can instantaneously merge, separate, or geometrically singular some components, and change the number of effective members or degrees of freedom of the mechanism, so as to produce a new configuration. It is what people often refer to as "plasticity".
With the advent of Chat GPT and SORA, people are becoming more and more aware of the advent of the era of intelligent robots. With the deterioration of the ecological environment and the increasing scarcity of natural resources, all kinds of robots and mechanical equipment have increasing requirements for the reconfigurable ability and variable structure characteristics of the mechanism. This requires innovative design of the mechanism of the robot skeleton, so that its form can be switched at will, with the ability to perform a variety of tasks, to achieve one machine with multiple functions, to achieve the effect of reducing environmental pollution and energy consumption.
From the perspective of mechanism design, once the design of the traditional mechanism of the robot is completed, its topology and activity are difficult to change. The reconfigurable mechanism can meet the requirements of multi-task, multi-working condition and multi-function due to its multi-configuration change, and realize "one machine with multiple functions".
According to Dai Jiansheng, in 1998, he proposed "Metamorphic Mechanisms" from biological principles, and in 1999, Zhang Qixian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, jointly confirmed the Chinese translation as "metamorphic mechanism". In 1998, the research on metamorphic mechanisms was awarded the Biennial Best Paper Award by the Institutional Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, becoming one of the only four papers to win the Best Paper Award in the 90s of the 20th century. In 2000, Dai Jiansheng published an article on the configuration model of metamorphic mechanisms, which set off an upsurge of research on metamorphic mechanisms and various new institutions at home and abroad. In 2006, he proposed reconfigurable mechanisms, and in 2009, he created a new field of reconfigurable mechanisms at the first IEEE International Conference on Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Reconfigurable Robots. After publishing "Spinor Algebra and Lie Group Lie Algebra" and "Spinor Algebra and Geometric Foundations of Mechanism and Robotics" in 2014, he published the monograph "Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Reconfigurable Robots" in 2020, which laid a solid theoretical foundation for transformer mechanisms and reconfigurable mechanisms. Nowadays, metamorphic mechanisms and reconfigurable mechanisms have become research hotspots and important new research areas in the field of mechanism and robotics at home and abroad.
In 2020, Dai Jiansheng's work won the highest international award for mechanical design: ASME Mechanical Design Highest Award. It is the 58th laureate in 62 years since 1958 and the first Chinese laureate. The award-winning speech is "for pioneering and foundational contributions to the establishment of the field of reconfigurable institutions and the subfield of metamorphic institutions". After that, Dai Jiansheng received the IFToMM Excellence Award from the International Union of Machine Theory and Mechanism in 2023, the 15th in 20 years. The award was given as "an exceptionally important achievement in the field of mechanism and machine science ("metamorphosis"), which has established a new direction of research for the field of the International Union of Machine Theory and Mechanism (IFToMM) and for the next generation of scientists in mechanism and machine science". Previously, in 2015, he received the ASME DED Highest Award for Mechanisms and Robotics, the 27th recipient in 41 years.
Whims produce inspiration, and interdisciplinary integration is promoted
The study of the transformative mechanism originated from a perfume box. In 1996, when Dai Jiansheng was studying the folding shape of perfume packaging boxes, he had a sudden inspiration and proposed a metamorphic mechanism with variable topology and variable activity on the basis of the principle of biological evolution.
"The shape of the perfume packaging pattern carton can attract many consumers, but the traditional production line can not do the flexible assembly of the outer packaging, and can only be packaged into a boxy carton, which can not change the shape and size slightly. In order to improve production efficiency, the company approached me and wanted to design a robot, 'Dexterous Hand', which could be installed on the production line to realize the automatic packaging of different shapes of perfume pattern cartons. Dai Jiansheng recalled. "At that time, my desk was full of all kinds of cardboard boxes, and every day I would open and fold and fold and open again. After folding the cartons and opening them for a long time, I thought: Why can't we use a mathematical model to describe the trajectory of these 'pattern cartons'? Since the cartons do not have a mathematical model, I proposed a mapping method to map the cartons into a mechanism, the creases into hinges, and the cardboard into connecting rods. And just like that, the hinge linkage mechanism was baked. After that, I gave a dotted line diagram and a topological diagram, and proposed various matrix transformations to illustrate the mechanism. Dai Jiansheng said.
On Dai Jiansheng's computer, the reporter saw the prototype of the desk and dexterous hands that were packed like a mountain back then. In his words: "The metamorphic mechanism comes from artistic enlightenment, biological integration, mathematical dominance and practical integration." From design, life sciences and materials science, to mathematics and robotics, the disciplines intersect and create the driving force that changes human progress.
In the Robotics Research Institute of SUSTech, the reporter also saw various inventions such as mutant humanoid dexterous hands, mutant cell foot robots, and bionic cross-domain hexapod robots. According to Dai Jiansheng, when the research on the global scale of metamorphic mechanisms was carried out, China focused on theoretical research, and after he proposed the theory of metamorphic mechanisms, he began to think about how to apply the theory from plane to space to make the robot structure more dexterous. Therefore, he aimed at the direction of intelligent structural evolution robots.
"In 1992, 32 years have passed since the intelligent structural evolution robot was proposed, and the focus of research has always been on evolutionary algorithms, and we intend to open up a new path, that is, to work structural evolution, so that the robot is structurally closer to the form presented in the evolution of all things in nature. Dai Jiansheng said, "how to better combine artificial intelligence with robots? This is inseparable from the two-way rush of algorithm intelligence and structural intelligence, if both are taken into account, then the application of artificial intelligence in the physical world will be fully realized, and robot research will also reach a new level." ”
Different from conventional robots holding fixed shapes, transformant robots can use their bodies, torsos, and bodies to achieve various changes, and are more suitable for natural conditions or work needs, such as obstacle overcoming, clamping and snatching in the process of emergency rescue and disaster relief. Dai Jiansheng told reporters that his team is developing mutant humanoid and variant multi-legged robots, whose appearance changes freely from arthropods to reptiles to mammals, sometimes as small as millimeters, and is expected to be launched by the end of this year or next year. At the same time, different shapes and new products are being created.
Set your sights on the Greater Bay Area, and study cooperation to create a win-win situation
Dai Jiansheng has been doing research in the field of robotics for 34 years, including more than 20 years in the field of metamorphic mechanisms and reconfigurability. Now, he has set his sights on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. In his words, the GBA has achieved a "win-win".
(Except for the signature, the pictures are provided by Academician Dai Jiansheng)
Founded in October 2017, the Robotics Research Institute of SUSTech is based in the Greater Bay Area, combined with the cutting-edge achievements of robotics and the industrial advantages and strategic layout of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and cooperates with top teams and enterprises at home and abroad to carry out research in the direction of bionics, metamorphosis, software, and legged robots. At present, the institute has established 3 provincial and municipal key laboratories, 8 school-enterprise joint laboratories, 4 academicians, and 41 teachers covering 5 colleges and 11 departments.
"The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has brought great opportunities for the development of the Institute, which not only has international radiation, but also gathers a group of top international talents. It is understood that the institute has 41 core research members, with study and work experience in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, King's College London, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other famous universities at home and abroad. Relying on the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Human Augmentation and Rehabilitation Robots, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Intelligent Robots and Flexible Manufacturing, and Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Bionic Robots and Intelligent Systems, the Institute takes advantage of high-precision technology platforms, attaches importance to the application of science and technology and the transformation of achievements, and actively builds a robot research and education platform with well-known enterprises at home and abroad, and explores a new model of deep integration of robot education and robot industry development. Cooperative enterprises include leading enterprises such as China Construction Technology, Han's Laser, Dahuan Robot, UBTECH, DJI, BGI Fund, ZTE, Tencent, BYD, Mindray, Royole Technology, etc., and have established a total of 22 school-enterprise joint laboratories. "In addition, we have collaborated with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on robot gripping, the University of London on the development of soft robots, the University of San Francisco on origami technology, and Monash University in Australia on agricultural robotics. We are integrated into the development of the Greater Bay Area, which in turn helps the growth of the Institute. With this platform, it is not a problem for scientific research to 'go out' and 'bring in'. Dai Jiansheng said.
Embodied intelligent robots lead the next wave of AI. In the 2023 National Natural Science Foundation of China, the key project of intelligent structural evolution robot led by Dai Jiansheng's team focusing on "scientific problems in mechanical design, manufacturing and service (E05)" was approved. Located in Shenzhen, the frontier city of reform and opening up, the development of the Robotics Research Institute has ushered in a rare historical opportunity. In the future, Dai Jiansheng firmly believes that the institute should not only be based in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, but also strive to lead related research to the forefront of international robotics research.
(Author: Jiao Ziyu, Chief Reporter of Shenzhen Special Zone Daily)