TerminatorBot - Locomotion and Manipulation from a Single Mechanism
TerminatorBot
The TerminatorBot is a small, crawling, search-and-rescue robot. Also known as CRAWLER
(Cylindrical Robot for Autonomous Walking and Lifting during Emergency Response), it is distinct
from most other small robots
in its ability to manipulate objects and crawl over difficult
terrain. Inspired by the final scene of the original Terminator movie,
this millibot is able to manipulate objects with its arms
and locomote by dragging itself with the same arms. Below are pictures of
the first two 75mm-diameter prototypes of the TerminatorBot.
A third has actuated claws for climbing down ropes. (Climbing action has yet
to be perfected. Stay tuned for videos future...)
The TerminatorBot is intended to be a manipulative node in a heterogeneous
fabric for ubiquitous computing. Nodes in this computational fabric will
contain many of the capabilities needed for a robot: computation, wireless
communication, sensing, and manipulation.
TerminatorBot Poster (This is a poster
describing key results and accomplishments.)
TerminatorBot Movie (This movie shows
the TerminatorBot crawling over rocks with several different human-selected
gaits - Windows media file.)
TerminatorBot Movie
(This movie shows
the TerminatorBot transitionsing from rocks to chips - mpg.)
Two TerminatorBots collaboratively navigating on rock and wood chips.
As part of a workshop sponsored by the NSF R4 program and the
NSF Safety, Security, and
Rescue Research Center, the TerminatorBot is shown here at the rubble pile
at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station with New Jersey Task Force 1.
TerminatorBot after a drop into a vertical sewer pipe.
TerminatorBot in mock Search-and-Rescue operation. (Robot
was manually controlled to perform this.)
TerminatorBot stowed for ballistic deployment.
TerminatorBot deployed for manipulation or locomotion.
Two TerminatorBots reconfigured as a 4-legged walker. These
two were manually attached, but future work will examine self-reconfiguring
TerminatorBot modules for 2- 4- and 6-legged locomotion.
There are two long-term goals regarding TerminatorBot's size. One is to
shrink it to about half-size
(40 mm in diameter) to make
it compatible with the M203 grenade launcher and the existing
Scouts.
The other goal is to increase its size about four times to achieve a better
power-to-weight ratio. The plan is then to examine the transitions from
crawling to bipedal walking, as shown below, using pairs of "legs"
customized for specific functions.
Two modular TerminatorBot mechanisms (actuated end effectors not shown) assembled into a roughly half-meter high invertible biped walker/swimmer for
multiple forms of locomotion.
There is also a project to develop a miniature, modular, single-board computer
to serve as the brain of TerminatorBot and other massively networked
research projects.
Publications
- Amy C. Larson, Guleser K. Demir, and Richard Voyles,
"Terrain Classification Using Weakly-Structured
Vehicle/Terrain Interaction ," to appear in
Autonomous Robots.
- A. Larson and R. Voyles, "TerminatorBot: A Novel Robot with Dual-Use
Mechanism for Locomotion and Manipulation," in
IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, v. 10, n. 1, pp. 17-25, 2005.
- R.M. Voyles, A.C. Larson, M. Lapoint and J. Bae,
"
Core-Bored Search-and-Rescue Applications for an Agile Limbed Robot,"
in Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems, v. 1, pp. 58-63.
- R.M. Voyles, A.C. Larson, K.B. Yesin, B. Nelson,
"Using Orthogonal Visual Servoing Errors
for Classifying Terrain,"
in Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems, v. 1, pp. 772 - 777.
- R.M. Voyles,
"A Mesoscale Mechanism for Adaptive
Mobile Manipulation,"
in Proceedings of the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division, ASME
Annual Meeting, v. 2, pp. 957-964.
- R.M. Voyles, "TerminatorBot:
A Robot with Dual-Use Arms for Manipulation and Locomotion," in
Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, v 1, pp. 61-66.
- K. Yesin, B. Nelson, N. Papanikolopoulos, R. Voyles and D. Krantz,
"Active Video System for a Miniature Reconnaissance Robot"
in
Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, v 4, pp. 3920-3925.
Robotics Sources
Distributed Robotics Source List
Semiconductor Manufacturers
Prof. Voyles' Home Page
Copyright: © 2007 by Richard M. Voyles
Department of Computer Engineering.
All rights reserved.
The University of Denver is an equal opportunity educator and employer.