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The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI

Robots used in research on Embodied AI often need to physically explore the world, to fail in the process, and to develop from such experiences. Most research robots are unfortunately too stiff to safely absorb impacts, too expensive to repair if broken repeatedly, and are never operated without the...

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Autores principales: Stoelen, Martin F., de Azambuja, Ricardo, López Rodríguez, Beatriz, Bonsignorio, Fabio, Cangelosi, Angelo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8963345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35360828
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2022.836772
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author Stoelen, Martin F.
de Azambuja, Ricardo
López Rodríguez, Beatriz
Bonsignorio, Fabio
Cangelosi, Angelo
author_facet Stoelen, Martin F.
de Azambuja, Ricardo
López Rodríguez, Beatriz
Bonsignorio, Fabio
Cangelosi, Angelo
author_sort Stoelen, Martin F.
collection PubMed
description Robots used in research on Embodied AI often need to physically explore the world, to fail in the process, and to develop from such experiences. Most research robots are unfortunately too stiff to safely absorb impacts, too expensive to repair if broken repeatedly, and are never operated without the red kill-switch prominently displayed. The GummiArm Project was intended to be an open-source “soft” robot arm with human-inspired tendon actuation, sufficient dexterity for simple manipulation tasks, and with an eye on enabling easy replication of robotics experiments. The arm offers variable-stiffness and damped actuation, which lowers the potential for damage, and which enables new research opportunities in Embodied AI. The arm structure is printable on hobby-grade 3D printers for ease of manufacture, exploits stretchable composite tendons for robustness to impacts, and has a repair-cycle of minutes when something does break. The material cost of the arm is less than $6000, while the full set of structural parts, the ones most likely to break, can be printed with less than $20 worth of plastic filament. All this promotes a concurrent approach to the design of “brain” and “body,” and can help increase productivity and reproducibility in Embodied AI research. In this work we describe the motivation for, and the development and application of, this 6 year project.
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spelling pubmed-89633452022-03-30 The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI Stoelen, Martin F. de Azambuja, Ricardo López Rodríguez, Beatriz Bonsignorio, Fabio Cangelosi, Angelo Front Neurorobot Neuroscience Robots used in research on Embodied AI often need to physically explore the world, to fail in the process, and to develop from such experiences. Most research robots are unfortunately too stiff to safely absorb impacts, too expensive to repair if broken repeatedly, and are never operated without the red kill-switch prominently displayed. The GummiArm Project was intended to be an open-source “soft” robot arm with human-inspired tendon actuation, sufficient dexterity for simple manipulation tasks, and with an eye on enabling easy replication of robotics experiments. The arm offers variable-stiffness and damped actuation, which lowers the potential for damage, and which enables new research opportunities in Embodied AI. The arm structure is printable on hobby-grade 3D printers for ease of manufacture, exploits stretchable composite tendons for robustness to impacts, and has a repair-cycle of minutes when something does break. The material cost of the arm is less than $6000, while the full set of structural parts, the ones most likely to break, can be printed with less than $20 worth of plastic filament. All this promotes a concurrent approach to the design of “brain” and “body,” and can help increase productivity and reproducibility in Embodied AI research. In this work we describe the motivation for, and the development and application of, this 6 year project. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8963345/ /pubmed/35360828 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2022.836772 Text en Copyright © 2022 Stoelen, de Azambuja, López Rodríguez, Bonsignorio and Cangelosi. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Stoelen, Martin F.
de Azambuja, Ricardo
López Rodríguez, Beatriz
Bonsignorio, Fabio
Cangelosi, Angelo
The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI
title The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI
title_full The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI
title_fullStr The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI
title_full_unstemmed The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI
title_short The GummiArm Project: A Replicable and Variable-Stiffness Robot Arm for Experiments on Embodied AI
title_sort gummiarm project: a replicable and variable-stiffness robot arm for experiments on embodied ai
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8963345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35360828
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2022.836772
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