Dai Jiansheng, Dean of the Robotics Research Institute of SUSTech. Photo by Shenzhen Business Daily reporter Zhang Xijun
Morphopod robots.
"Transform" into a robot
● It can curl up in a ball and burrow into tight spaces
● It can stretch out 4 "feet" and climb steps flexibly
● It is the world's first mutant cell pod robot with multiple forms of imitation
● It will have a great future in medical and other applications
Shenzhen News Network, April 9, 2024 (Wu Ji, Chief Reporter of Shenzhen Business Daily) In science fiction movies, "Transformers" will become a car for a while, and a humanoid for a while. Recently, at the Southern University of Science and Technology, the reporter also saw such a robot that can be freely "transformed", only to see that it can curl up into a ball and burrow into a narrow space, or it can stretch out four "feet" and flexibly climb the steps...... Without the need to disassemble and reassemble, it can switch back and forth between reptiles, arthropods, and mammals. The world's first variant-legged robot with a variety of imitation forms was developed by the Institute of Robotics of SUSTech, and the leader is Dai Jiansheng, Dean of the Institute of Robotics of SUSTech, Academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Academician of the European Academy of Sciences.
The groundbreaking theory was inspired by origami
"Leaning on the trail to climb the mountain to check the changes, paving the books and writing the changes of the cell view. There is a way for the evolution of the swarm, and the machine has many ways to overcome all difficulties. These poems are excerpted from Dai Jiansheng's seven-law poem "Meng Chun Endeavor", in which the "mutant cell" refers to the mutant robot he has studied for more than 20 years.
In 1996, after completing his postdoctoral work, Dai Jiansheng joined Unilever, a world-renowned beauty/cosmetics company, where he was responsible for the development of machine dexterous hands to assist in the design and production of product packaging. "As we all know, perfume packaging is very sophisticated, and it is not easy to develop a machine dexterity that can handle such a complex task. At the time, my desk was full of beautiful cartons, which I folded every day for inspiration. Dai Jiansheng recalled that the development of dexterous hands needs to study the object first, and the packaging carton is this object, and its folding trajectory needs to be modeled. He looked at the ever-changing origami and thought to him: aren't the creases and connecting cardboard of this origami just hinges and connecting rods? Can this mapping method be applied to the structure of robots?
After much research, he proposed Metamorphic Mechanisms from the principles of biology, which was published in 1998, establishing his pioneering position in this theoretical field. Since then, he has jointly confirmed the Chinese translation as "metamorphic mechanism" with Zhang Qixian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and has been deeply engaged in the field of metamorphic mechanism and reconfigurability for more than 20 years.
Dai Jiansheng and his team's years of research have opened up a new field of reconfigurable mechanisms and reconfigurable robots in the world, and the mutant cell foot robot that has caused a lot of amazement in the industry is based on this theory. "For decades, the body of the robot has hardly changed, and it has used its arms to complete instructions. But the mutant robot is different, it can use the ontology to complete various changes and adapt to various scenes. I believe that it will have a broad space for development in the field of application. Dai Jiansheng said.
In 2015, he received the "ASME DED Highest Award for Mechanics and Robotics", and in 2020, he received the first Chinese winner of the ASME Mechanical Design Award, which was highly praised for his "pioneering and foundational contributions to the establishment of the field of reconfigurable mechanisms and the subfield of transformative mechanisms". His work was reaffirmed in 2023 when the International Federation of Machine Theory and Mechanism (IFToMM) awarded him the "IFToMM Award for Outstanding Achievement" for his "extraordinary achievements in machine theory and mechanism (metamorphic mechanisms), which established a new research direction for the next generation of international machine theory and mechanism scientists".
Dai Jiansheng was inspired by origami, and his research on origami is the earliest in the world. Until now, the doctoral students he trained are still studying origami. The ever-changing mysteries of origami provide a basis for the transformation of robots. Just as he likes to recite poetry in his spare time, Dai Jiansheng said that art and technology are inseparable, and the integration of these two kinds of thinking can broaden research ideas. "Robotics is a comprehensive discipline. Dai Jiansheng wrote down the following key words on the whiteboard behind him - "artistic enlightenment, biological penetration, mathematics dominance, and practical integration". Inspired by art, deduced by scientific logic, until adapting to the needs of the environment and practice, this is the robotics discipline in Dai Jiansheng's heart.
Let structural intelligence keep up with AI
The international award-winning variant robot can change its configuration according to environmental characteristics to better adapt to different typical terrains, and can be applied to inspection, field reconnaissance, and extraterrestrial exploration. Taking advantage of the reconfigurability of the trunk of the variable-pod robot, a variety of motion modes such as self-recovery, self-folding, narrow road, fast turning and obstacle crossing gait were designed, which improved the flexibility of the robot's movement and enriched the selectivity of the motion scheme. "We will soon launch a new generation of variant cell foot robots, which are larger and more complex, and can carry more heavy loads, and we are also actively developing micro soft robots that can be used in the medical field. Dai Jiansheng said that with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, transformer robots have great prospects in the application field.
At present, "humanoid robot+" is being regarded as the ultimate track for artificial intelligence applications in the context of digitalization and intelligence in the future. Dai Jiansheng said: "Artificial intelligence is algorithmic intelligence and logical intelligence, how can it be combined with the physical world? When structural intelligence and algorithmic intelligence are combined, they become embodied intelligence. That's where the future goes. What we need to do is to make structural intelligence keep up with the development of algorithmic intelligence, and make 'thinking' become 'doing'. ”
In the 2023 National Natural Science Foundation of China, the key project led by Dai Jiansheng's team focusing on "Scientific Issues in Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Service (E05)" was approved. This project focuses on the international problems of high-adaptability design and steady-state allosterism of metamorphic mechanisms, integrates the principles of biological evolution, deeply studies the evolution of force flow and the influence of evolutionary morphology on the configuration evolution of highly adaptive metamorphic mechanisms, and develops two highly adaptable intelligent structural evolutionary robots with metamorphosis characteristics to adapt to aviation narrow cavity operations and aerospace space capture tasks. This is also the next task and mission of the team. Dai Jiansheng said.
Robots have a lot to offer in the Greater Bay Area
Recently, Shenzhen issued the "Implementation Plan on Accelerating the Development of New Quality Productivity and Further Promoting the High-quality Development of Strategic Emerging Industrial Clusters and Future Industries", which clearly mentions the promotion of intelligent robots and other future industries within 5 to 10 years of industrial scale growth. In the face of the opportunities given by the times, Dai Jiansheng said that in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, robot-related scientific research and industries are promising.
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has international radiation and is attractive to international talents. Taking SUSTech Robotics Research Institute as an example, the institute covers 5 colleges and 11 departments, and so many top talents in different fields gather together to burn passion and work together for the same goal, and participate in the construction of the Greater Bay Area, which is a huge driving force.
He also made special mention of the outstanding manufacturing advantages of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. "The robotics industry in the Greater Bay Area is very developed, and we have cooperated with many enterprises, including many leading enterprises. It is important for our research to be able to implement our latest research results faster. Source: Shenzhen Business Daily