Mechanism as Mind: What Tensegrities and Caterpillars Can Teach Us about Soft Robotics John Rieffel1 , Barry Trimmer1

and Hod Lipson2 1Biomimetic Devices Laboratory, Tufts University, %ohn&rieffel'tufts&edu Abstract (ith recent advances in materials, interest is bein) applied tothe idea of robots *ith fe* if any ri)id parts, able to substan+tially deform themselves in order to ,o* around, and eventhrou)h ob%ects& $n order to accomplish these )oals in an ef+-cient and affordable manner, space and po*er *ill be at apremium, and so soft robots *ill most li.ely be both under+actuated and under+controlled& /ne approach to actuation andcontrol lies in embodyin) portions of both tas.s *ithin thestructural dynamics of the robot itself& #uch 0morpholo)i+cal computation0 is .no*n to e1ist throu)hout the biolo)ical*orld, from the behavior of cellular cytos.eletons up to thetendinous net*or. of the human hand& Here *e present t*oe1amples of morpholo)ical computation + one from biolo)y,the manduca sexta caterpillar, and one from en)ineerin), amodular tense)rity to*er + and e1plore ho* ideas from theserealms can be applied to*ard locomotion and control of ahi)hly articulate, under+controlled, soft robot& Introduction $ma)ine a robot that can s2uee3e throu)h holes, climb up *alls, and,o* around obstacles& /nce the domain of science -ction, than.sto modern advances in materials such as polymers 4Huan) et al&,25567, and nanocomposites 4"apadona et al&, 25587 such a 9softrobot0 is becomin) an increasin) possibility& This ability to si)ni-+cantly deform and alter shape, at a much hi)her level of detail thandiscrete 9modular0 robots 4such as :im;s <olybot 425557 and Rus;s olecubes 41==877 ma.es accessable ne* and increasin)ly impor+tant environments such as mine -elds and collapsed buildin)s& Ho*ever, this incredible ,e1ibility and deformability brin)s*ith it considerable constraints in terms of actuation, po*er, andpayload& #trivin) not to have any ri)id or fully solid elementsmeans that servo motors and batteries + the bread and butter, soto spea., of conventional robotics + are far from ideal& !s a conse+2uence, soft robots *ill in all li.elihood be under+actuated, under+po*ered, and under+ controlled& Therefore, the onus lies upon softrobotics researchers to discover *ays of controllin) these hi)hlyarticulate systems& >ortunately, nature itself has provided us *ith several 2uite vi+able prototypes, amon) them many of the lar)e invertebrates suchas the octopus, s2uid, and the manduca sexta caterpillar, the latterof *hich *e *ill dra* particular inspiration from in this *or.& !s*e discuss in detail belo*, themanduca is able to achieve incred+ible ,e1ibility and control, despite havin) relatively fe* musclesand astonishin)ly fe* motoneurons in each of its se)ments& $t iscon%ectured therefore that, inmanduca, the interaction of hydro+statics, body *all tension, and muscles, all contribute to a de)ree of neuromechanics, ormorphological computation 4Trimmer, 25567&That is to say, a lar)e amount of the *or. normally attributed tothe neural system is instead 9outsourced0 and embodied directlyinto the mechanics of the structure& #imilar types of morpholo)icalcomputation have been observed in other biolo)ical systems, suchas the tendonous net*or. of the human hand 4?alero+"uevas et al&,25567, *allabies Bie*ener et al& 4255@7, and coc.roaches !hn andR&J&>ull 425527& $n this paper *e revie* some details of manduca;s anatomy andlocomotion as it pertains to morpholo)ical computation& (e thenpresent related *or. in *hich a hi)hly comple1 mechanical sys+ edford ! ! 2"omputational #ynthesis Laboratory, "ornell University, $thaca

tem A a tense)rity structure A is able to achieve locomotion by e1+ploitin) the dynamical couplin) bet*een modules as an emer)entdata bus& >inally, *e brin) these aspects to)ether *hen describin)the desi)n and control of a completely soft robot modeled looselyon the manduca& solvin) the issues of actuation and control inherent insoft robotics& The anduca #e1ta Caterpillar: a Model Species for Soft Robotics? "aterpillars such asmanduca sexta 4Figure 7 are some of themost successful climbin) herbivores in the *orld& They are in+credibly ,e1ible, *ith a lar)e multi+dimensional *or.space, areable to cantilever themselves over )aps up to =5B of their len)th,and perform a u+turn inside spaccesless than t*ice their body di+ameter4Trimmer, 25567& They are able to accomplish all of thisbecause of, and at the same time despite of, the fact that they arecompletely soft+bodied and lac. any ri)id elements such as a s.elo+ton& Unli.e the beam+and+lever mechanics of vertebrates, manducamove throu)h a comple1 dynamical interplay of hydraulics, body*all tension, and muscles& ost remar.ably, they are able to accomplish all of these com+ple1 behaviors despite a relatively simple anatomy& ost locomo+tion is performed by the co+ordination of their abdominal se)ments,each of *hich contains on the order of 65 muscles& >urthermore,each such se)ment contains relatively fe* motoneurons 4one, orma1imally t*o per muscle7, and no inhibitory motor units 4Trim+mer, 25567&Figure ! contains an illustration of the ma%or muscles*ithin a sin)le such se)ment& These muscles ho*ever, are in ofthemselves rather comple1, e1hibitin) nonlinear and pseudo+ elasticresponses to load cyclin) 4Figure "7 *hich are 2uite different thanvertebrate muscles 4Dorfmann et al&, 25567& !ll of these properties come into play *hen observin) the cra*l+in) .inematics of the animal 4 Figure #7& Under normal locomo+tion, *aves of motion pass from the rear se)ment of the animal 4T#7 to*ard the head& !s the *ave propa)ates, each se)ment com+presses then re+e1tends, *ith the dorsal and ventral parts remain+in) in phase& #ome*hat pu33lin)ly, the len)th and radius of eachse)ment co+vary + they narro* and shorten simultaneously & Thissu))ests that ,uid volume is not conserved durin) cra*lin) + rathertissue and ,uid are moved and compressed throu)hout the animaldurin) locomotion 4Trimmer and $ssberner, 25567& "ombined, these comple1 mechanical properties, and the lim+ited neural control, lead to the conclusion that the dynamics of thesystem is itself responsible for control tas.s that *ould other*isebe attributed to neural circuitry& (e e1plore and describe ho* acomple1 mechanical structure can e1ploit this .ind of coupled dy+namics in order to achieve co+ordinated motion in the follo*in)section& ore broadly, *e hope to present morpholo)+ical computation A the use of mechanism as mind A as the bestapproach to

Morphological Communication in Tensegrit$ Robots Traditional en)ineerin) approaches strive to avoid, or actively sup+press, the .ind of nonlinear dynamic couplin) amon) componentse1hibited in the anatomy of the manduca& Cspecially near resonantfre2uencies, these couplin)s tend to produce undesirable vibrationsand oscillations that are dif-cult to predict and may sometimes becatastrophic& ! variety of passive and active dampin) techni2ueshave been developed to diminish these effect across many -eldsran)in) from robotics to structural en)ineerin)& Biolo)ical systems, by contrast, are often rife *ith comple1 dy+namics& Beyond the e1amples frommanduca, consider the princi+ple of tense)rity, *hich can be found at many scales of life, ran)in)from the cellular cytos.eleton and the structure of proteins 4$n)ber, 1==87 to the tendinous net*or. of the human hand 4?alero+"uevaset al&, 25567& !t every scale, these systems contain the type of cou+pled mechanical and dynamical lin.a)es *hich are so assiduouslyavoided in en)ineerin) desi)n& "ould there be in fact, an advanta)eto such hi)h de)rees of dynamical couplin)D The *ord tense)rity, a concatenation of tensile inte)rity *ascoined by Buc.minster >uller to describe structures -rst popu+lari3ed by the sculptor Eenneth #nelson in 1=@8 4>uller, 1=6F7&Broadly spea.in), a tense)rity structure is a set of dis%oint ri)id el+ements 4rods7 *hose endpoints are connected by tensile elements4strin)s7, and *hich maintains its shape due to the syner)y bet*eenthe compressive forces on its rods and the complementary forces inits cables& #uch structures are pre+stress stable, in the sense that ine2uilibrium each ri)id element is under pure compression and eachtensile element is under pure tension& The structure therefore hasa tendency to return to its stable con-)uration after sub%ected toany moderate temporary perturbation 4"onnelly and Bac., 1==8G otro, 255H7& Unfortunately, these 2ualities *hich ma.e tense)rities so attrac+tive, lar)ely pre+stress stability,

carry *ith them comple1 nonlineardynamics, even for relatively small tense)rity structures 4#.eltonet al&, 25517, and as a result, active control is needed to dampenthe vibrational modes of relatively modest structures& $n almostall cases, deformation and control are achieved by chan)in) therest len)ths of the tensile elements, for instance by attachin) at+tachin) strin)s to a reeled servo motor& $n this manner, #.elton et al.have been able to demonstrate both active vibration damp+ in) 4255@7 and open+loop control of simple structures& Cfforts suchas these, ho*ever, see. to minimi3e and control the comple1 dy+namics of tense)rity structures, and no effective model e1ists forthe control of the comple1 dynamics of relatively lar)e tense)ritystructures& Rather than attemptin) to scale these control schemesto arbitrarily lar)e and comple1 structures, our interest, by contrast,lies in harnessin) and e1ploitin) these dynamics in the same *aythat biolo)ical systems seem to& Modular Tensegrit$ Robotics "onstructin) robots from tense)rities is a double+ed)ed s*ord& /none hand the homo)eneity of the ri)id elements allo*s for a hi)hde)ree of modularityI each rod can contain identical sets of sen+sors and actuators A the parts of a 15+bar tense)rity are identicalto those of a H+bar one& /n the other hand, any solution *hich re+lies upon centrali3ed control of the robot faces a crucial problemIthat of communication bet*een modules& !s the number of mod+ules increases, the lines of communication 42uite literally7 increase,brin)in) both the challen)e of coordination and the ris. of tan)les&"onsider, for instance, the tense)rity sho*n inFigure %& Cven *itha sin)le sensor and actuator at each end of each bar, a centrali3edcontroller *ould need to synthesi3e, and co+ordinate the actions ofthirty sensors and thirty controllers& (e implement a simpler alternative to the problem of controland locomotion by doin) a*ay *ith the notion of e1plicit inter+modular communication completely& $n our model *e considereach rod of the tense)rity to be a simple module *ith a small con+troller capable only of sensin), and affectin) the tension on a sin)lestrin) at each end& Cach strut module consists of a ri)id tube *itha sin)le servo motor mounted at each end& (hile, in principle,multiple strin)s could be actuated by multiple servos at each end,*e have chosen to .eep the desi)n simple by limitin) actuation oneach end to a sin)le strin)&Figure & contains a photo)raph of arepresentative tense)rity robot *hich contains four strut modules $n order to add time sensitivity *e use a variant of !JJs called spi.in) neural net*or.s& #pi.in) neural net*or.s 4#JJs7 *eredeveloped to model more continuous processesI input and outputs are both represented as sin)le+value spi.es 4as opposed the si)moidoutputs of a conventional !JJ7 4 aass and Bishop, 1===7& $nsteadof a si)moid function, every #JJ node contains a simple persistentcounter, *ith ad%ustable offset and limit& !t every time step, an#JJ node sums its *ei)hted inputs *ith the current counter value,and if the sum surpasses the limit the node -res a sin)le 9spi.e0 toits outputG other*ise the contents of the counter are decrementedby a -1ed decay rate, and persist until the ne1t time step& Cach strut module in our tense)rity robot contains a sin)le spi.+in) neural net*or. *ith t*o inputs, correspondin) to the tensionsensed at the sin)le actuated strin) on each end, t*o hidden nodes,and t*o outputs& !t every simulation time step, each module mea+sures its inputs and feed them throu)h the #JJ& /utput spi.es areconverted into strin) actuations by measurin) the duty cycle of net+*or. spi.es& !ny spi.e rate above H5B over a 155 step periodis considered 9active0, and the correspondin) strin) is pulled byhalvin) its rest len)th& /ur choice of relatively simple binary ac+tuation in this re)ard is an effort to simplify overall control, and toreduce the dif-culty in translatin) simulated results into physicalservo

values& '(ol(ing )$namic *aits $n order to evolve )aits for tense)rity robots, the 1F+bar tense)+rity sho*n in Figure % *as reproduced *ithin the /pen Dynam+ics Cn)ine 4/DC7 #imulation environment , the *idely used open+source physics en)ine *hich provides hi)h+performance simula+tions of HD ri)id body dynamics& Ri)id elements *ere representedas solid capped cylinders of -1ed len)th *ith a len)th+to+radius ra+tio of 2@I1& Tensile elements *ere represented as sprin)+li.e forcesactin) upon the cylinder ends& (ith only H5 actuators available 4one at the end of each strutmodule7, and a choice of 68 strin)s to actuate, *e chose to evolveboth the uni2ue *ei)hts of the #JJ *ithin each strut module, andalso *hich particular strin) at each end to actuate& Kenotypes ofindividuals *ithin the population therefore consisted of t*o sub+)enes& The -rst contained 185 ,oatin) point numbers correspond+in) to the collective *ei)hts of all 1F strut module controllers*ithin the structure& The second consisted of a pairin) of actu+ated strin)s *ith strut endpoints& ! sin)le point mutation couldtherefore either chan)e a *ei)ht *ithin the #JJ or chan)e *hichstrin) *as actuated at a particular endpoint&

Usin) this frame*or., *e *ere able to evolve the *ei)hts *ithinthe separate #JJs such that the structure as a *hole *as able to lo+comote& Cach e1periment consisted of a population of 1F5 individ+ uals initiali3ed *ith random #JJ *ei)hts evolved over the courseof 1555 )enerations& $ndividuals *ere evaluated *ithin our sim+ulated environment by measurin) the travel of the center of massover the course of 25,555 simulator time steps& embers of thepopulation *ere then ran.ed by their -tness, and the bottom scor+in) half of the population culled& 6F ne* individuals *ere thencreated as offsprin) of the remainin) population via -tness pro+portional selection, in *hich H5B of offsprin) *ere produced *itht*o+parent crossover, and the remainder *ith sin)le+point sin)le+parent mutation& Figure +sho*s the strin) activations of one successful evolved )ait durin) a sin)le )ait cycle, and Figure , contains snapshotsof the movement of the ensuin) locomotion& The path of the redsphere above the structure trac.s the center of mass of the structure4vertically displaced for visuali3ation7& $t is *orth notin) that thislocomotion is accomplished despite the fact that the activity of thestrin)s sho*n in >i)ure = is so lo*& The movement of the entirestructure is, in fact, caused lar)ely by the oscillation of %ust t*o ofits 68 strin)s& This provides some indication of the e1tent to *hichthe )ait is e1ploitin) the dynamics of the tense)rity itself, and itsvibrational modes& (e can further 2ualitatively measure the couplin) bet*eenevolved )ait and system dynamics by observin) the behavior of thestructure *hen the speed of the evolved )ait is ad%usted *hile .eep+in) the dynamics of the system unchan)ed& !s sho*n in >i)ure 8both the distance traveled and the path traversed vary si)ni-cantlyunder varyin) speeds& To-ard A Soft Robot /ur aim is to create a completely soft, articulate and deformablerobot modeled and inspired by themanduca& Li.e manduca 4*hich)ro*s 15555+fold *ithout any chan)es in musculature or nervoussystem7, *e hope to arrive at a hi)hly scalable solution + chan)+in) materials and actuators as necessary, *hile maintainin) hi)hlysimilar control schemes& The constraints any such system *hichstrives to be fully soft means that space and po*er for actuation*ill be at a premium& $t is clear that, much li.e the biolo)ical sys+tem, our soft robot must levera)e every aspect of its morpholo)y inorder to of,oad *hat are normally considered computational tas.s&The material proporties of the

body *all and associated actuators*ill need to be, in effect, part body and part brain& Figure .contains a photo)raph of a prototype of such a system& The main body of the robot is cast from a soft silocone elastomer and actuated usin) # ! *ires& /ur aim in this case is to attempt to mimic, albeit at coarser )rain, the placement of muscles *ithin manduca& Both the elastic properties of the silocone and the ten+sion of the # ! sprin)s can be ti)htly controlled, *hich *ill bevital for e1ploitin) dynamics bet*een them& $t is no coincidencethat the pseudo+elasticity demonstrated in themanduca muscles isvery similar to that e1hibited in rubber doped *ith carbon+blac.particles 4Dorfmann et al&, 25567& /ur results *ith tense)rities demonstrate that it is possible tomodel and evolve dynamically comple1 systems *hich are capa+ble of e1ploitin) effects such as mechanical couplin) in order toachieve locomotion& These results do not directly translate to asoft robot ho*everI the use of supple, deformable materials *ithsuch comple1 dynamics means that ri)id body simulations, suchas those provided by the commonly used /pen Dynamics Cn)ine4/DC7 physics en)ine are insuf-cient& $nstead, *e *ill use the<hysL en)ine developed by !)eia Technolo)ies, *hich is capableof providin) realistic simulations of deformable soft bodies such ascloth and rubber& (ithin this system, *e hope to be able to haveti)htly control over speci-c material properties at particular pointsof the body, such as stiffness, elasticity, *ithout needin) to resortto full >inite Clement !nalysis, *hich mi)ht be more accurate, butat the cost of si)ni-cantly lon)er evaluation times&

Concluding Remar/s !dvances in material science are brin)in) the promise of soft, ,e1+ible robots closer to reality& (ith the beni-ts of these ne* abilitiesand behaviors come ne* challen)es in desi)n and control& Ho*can you actuate, much less control, a ,oppy amorphous structurethat lac.s any ri)id elementsD >ortunately a solution e1ists in theforms of biolo)ical invertebrates such as the octopus and the manduca sextacaterpillar& $t is becomin) clear that much of the ability of these animals lies in the particulars of their morpholo)y A smartstructures, in essence, *hich reduce the amount of neural computa+tion re2uired to perform comple1 tas.s& #ince *e .no* it occurs innature, *e hope to reproduce simmilar effects in a soft robot& Here*e have sho*n ho* one such form ofmorphological computationcan arise in a comple1 mechanical system as *ell + in our case alar)e irre)ular tense)rity structure& (ith *hat *e .no*, and *hat*e hope to soon learn aboutmanduca, and *ith the methodolo)iesemployed in ma.in) our modular tense)rity robots *al., *e hopeto shed li)ht on ho* to build smart, resilient, and sophisticated softrobots& Re)ardless of the -nal appearance, it is clear that any suc+cessful soft robot;s body *ill be at once both mechanism and mind& References !hn, !& and R&J&>ull 425527& ! motor and a bra.eI t*o le) e1tensormuscles actin) at the same %oint mana)e ener)y differently ina runnin) insect&Journal of Experimental Biology, 25F& Bie*ener, !&, cKo*an, "&, "ard, K&, and Baudinette, R& 4255@7&Dynamics of le) muscle function in tammar *allabies 4m&eu)enii7 durin) level versus incline hoppin)&Journal of Ex-

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