My students and I work on very tiny robots. Now, you can think of these as robotic versions of something that you're all very familiar with: an ant. We all know that ants and other insects at this size scale can do some pretty incredible things. We've all seen a group of ants, or some version of that, carting off your potato chip at a picnic, for example.
Moji studenti i ja radimo na jako malim robotima. Sada, možete gledati na njih kao robotske verzije nečega što vam je vrlo poznato: mrav. Svi znamo da mravi i drugi insekti ove veličine mogu učiniti neke poprilično nevjerojatne stvari. Svi smo vidjeli grupu mrava, ili neku verziju toga, kako odnose komad čipsa na pikniku, na primjer.
But what are the real challenges of engineering these ants? Well, first of all, how do we get the capabilities of an ant in a robot at the same size scale? Well, first we need to figure out how to make them move when they're so small. We need mechanisms like legs and efficient motors in order to support that locomotion, and we need the sensors, power and control in order to pull everything together in a semi-intelligent ant robot. And finally, to make these things really functional, we want a lot of them working together in order to do bigger things.
Ali što su pravi izazovi u izradi ovakvih mrava? Prvo, kako sposobnosti jednog mrava ubaciti u robota iste veličine? Pa, prvo moramo utvrditi kako ih pokretati kada su tako mali. Trebamo mehanizme poput nogu, i učinkovite motore kako bismo podržali to kretanje, i trebamo senzore, napajanje i kontrolu kako bismo sve povezali u poluinteligentnog mrava robota. I konačno, kako bi te stvari postale upotrebljive, želimo ih imati puno kako bi činile veće stvari.
So I'll start with mobility. Insects move around amazingly well. This video is from UC Berkeley. It shows a cockroach moving over incredibly rough terrain without tipping over, and it's able to do this because its legs are a combination of rigid materials, which is what we traditionally use to make robots, and soft materials. Jumping is another really interesting way to get around when you're very small. So these insects store energy in a spring and release that really quickly to get the high power they need to jump out of water, for example.
Počet ću s pokretljivošću. Insekti se kreću začuđujuće dobro. Ovo je video sa sveučilišta Berkeley. Prikazuje žohara koji se kreće preko nevjerojatno teškog terena bez da se prevrne, i to može učiniti jer su njegove noge kombinacija krutih materijala, koje tradicionalno koristimo za izradu robota, i mekih materijala. Skakanje je još jedan zanimljiv način kretanja kada si malen. Ovi insekti spremaju energiju u oprugu i otpuštaju je vrlo brzo kako bi dobili veliku snagu da iskoče iz vode, na primjer.
So one of the big contributions from my lab has been to combine rigid and soft materials in very, very small mechanisms. So this jumping mechanism is about four millimeters on a side, so really tiny. The hard material here is silicon, and the soft material is silicone rubber. And the basic idea is that we're going to compress this, store energy in the springs, and then release it to jump. So there's no motors on board this right now, no power. This is actuated with a method that we call in my lab "graduate student with tweezers." (Laughter) So what you'll see in the next video is this guy doing amazingly well for its jumps. So this is Aaron, the graduate student in question, with the tweezers, and what you see is this four-millimeter-sized mechanism jumping almost 40 centimeters high. That's almost 100 times its own length. And it survives, bounces on the table, it's incredibly robust, and of course survives quite well until we lose it because it's very tiny.
Jedan od velikih doprinosa iz mog laboratorija je bilo kombiniranje krutih i mekih materijala u vrlo, vrlo male mehanizme. Ovaj mehanizam za skakanje je 4 milimetra velik, dakle vrlo malen. Tvrdi materijal ovdje je silikon, a meki je silikonska guma. I osnovna ideja je da ćemo ovo komprimirati, pohraniti energiju u opruge, i onda ju otpustiti kako bi skočio. Nema motora u ovom trenutku, nema snage. Ovo potičemo s metodom koju u mom labosu zovemo "diplomac sa pincetom." (Smijeh) Ono što ćete vidjeti u sljedećm videu jest kako ovaj mali iznimno dobro skače. Ovo je Aaron, spomenuti diplomac, sa pincetom, i ono što vidite je ovaj mehanizam od 4 milimetra kako skače gotovo 40 centimetara. To je gotovo stotinu puta njegova dužina. I preživi, odskakuje od stola, iznimno je otporan, i naravno preživljava vrlo dobro dok ga ne izgubimo jer je vrlo malen.
Ultimately, though, we want to add motors to this too, and we have students in the lab working on millimeter-sized motors to eventually integrate onto small, autonomous robots. But in order to look at mobility and locomotion at this size scale to start, we're cheating and using magnets. So this shows what would eventually be part of a micro-robot leg, and you can see the silicone rubber joints and there's an embedded magnet that's being moved around by an external magnetic field.
U konačnici, ipak, želimo dodati i motore ovome, i imamo studente u labosu koji rade na motorima veličine milimetra kako bi se s vremenom integrirali na malene, autonomne robote. Ali da bismo vidjeli mobilnost i kretanje u ovoj veličini u početku, varamo i koristimo magnete. Ovo pokazuje što će s vremenom biti dio mikro-robotske noge, i možete vidjeti silikonske gumene zglobove i tu je ugrađeni magnet koji se pomiče uokolo uz pomoć magnetskog polja.
So this leads to the robot that I showed you earlier. The really interesting thing that this robot can help us figure out is how insects move at this scale. We have a really good model for how everything from a cockroach up to an elephant moves. We all move in this kind of bouncy way when we run. But when I'm really small, the forces between my feet and the ground are going to affect my locomotion a lot more than my mass, which is what causes that bouncy motion. So this guy doesn't work quite yet, but we do have slightly larger versions that do run around. So this is about a centimeter cubed, a centimeter on a side, so very tiny, and we've gotten this to run about 10 body lengths per second, so 10 centimeters per second. It's pretty quick for a little, small guy, and that's really only limited by our test setup. But this gives you some idea of how it works right now. We can also make 3D-printed versions of this that can climb over obstacles, a lot like the cockroach that you saw earlier.
Tako da ovo vodi do robota kojeg sam vam pokazala ranije. Stvarno zanimljiva stvar je da nam taj robot može pomoći shvatiti kako se insekti kreću na ovoj veličini. Imamo dobar model kako se kreće sve od žohara do slona. Svi se krećemo na ovaj nekako skakutavi način kada trčimo. Ali kada sam stvarno malen, sile između mojih nogu i tla utjecat će na moje kretanje puno više od moje mase, što uzrokuje to skakutavo kretanje. Tako da taj robot još ne radi, ali imamo malo veće verzije koje trče uokolo. To je centimater kubni, centimetar na svakoj strani, dakle vrlo maleno, i postigli smo da trči otprilike 10 tjelesnih dužina u sekundi, dakle 10 centimetara u sekundi. To je prilično brzo za malog momka, i to je limitirano postavkama našeg testa. Ali to vam daje ideju kako to sada radi. Možemo raditi i 3D printane verzije koje se mogu penjati preko prepreka, slično kao žohar kojeg ste vidjeli ranije.
But ultimately we want to add everything onboard the robot. We want sensing, power, control, actuation all together, and not everything needs to be bio-inspired. So this robot's about the size of a Tic Tac. And in this case, instead of magnets or muscles to move this around, we use rockets. So this is a micro-fabricated energetic material, and we can create tiny pixels of this, and we can put one of these pixels on the belly of this robot, and this robot, then, is going to jump when it senses an increase in light.
Ali u konačnici želimo dodati sve na robota. Želimo opažanje, snagu, kontrolu, pokretanje, sve zajedno, i ne mora sve biti bio inspirirano. Ovaj robot je veličine Tic Taca. I u ovom slučaju, umjesto magneta ili mišića za kretanje, koristimo rakete. Ovo je mikro-konstruirani energetski materijal, i možemo stvoriti malene piksele od ovoga, i možemo staviti jedan od tih piksela na trbuh robota, i ovaj robot, će potom, skočliti kada osjeti promjenu u svjetlosti.
So the next video is one of my favorites. So you have this 300-milligram robot jumping about eight centimeters in the air. It's only four by four by seven millimeters in size. And you'll see a big flash at the beginning when the energetic is set off, and the robot tumbling through the air. So there was that big flash, and you can see the robot jumping up through the air. So there's no tethers on this, no wires connecting to this. Everything is onboard, and it jumped in response to the student just flicking on a desk lamp next to it.
Sljedeći video mi je jedan od najdražih. Imate 300-miligramskog robota koji skače osam centimetara u zrak. Velik je tek četiri puta četiri puta sedam milimetara. I vidjet ćete veliki bljesak na početku kada se pokrene energetika, i robot se kotrlja zrakom. Tu je bio taj veliki bljesak, i možete vidjeti robota kako skače kroz zrak. Nema spona na ovome, nema žica koje to povezuju. Sve je na njemu, i skočio je u odgovor na to što je student upalio stolnu lampu pored njega.
So I think you can imagine all the cool things that we could do with robots that can run and crawl and jump and roll at this size scale. Imagine the rubble that you get after a natural disaster like an earthquake. Imagine these small robots running through that rubble to look for survivors. Or imagine a lot of small robots running around a bridge in order to inspect it and make sure it's safe so you don't get collapses like this, which happened outside of Minneapolis in 2007. Or just imagine what you could do if you had robots that could swim through your blood. Right? "Fantastic Voyage," Isaac Asimov. Or they could operate without having to cut you open in the first place. Or we could radically change the way we build things if we have our tiny robots work the same way that termites do, and they build these incredible eight-meter-high mounds, effectively well ventilated apartment buildings for other termites in Africa and Australia.
Tako da mislim da možete zamisliti sve super stvari koje možemo učiniti s robotima koji mogu trčati i puzati i skakati i kotrljati se na ovoj veličini. Zamislite krš koji dobijete nakon prirodne katastrofe poput potresa. Zamislite te male robote kako trče kroz taj krš tražeći preživjele. Ili zamislite puno malih robota kako trče oko mosta kako bi ga pregledali i utvrdili da je siguran tako da vam se ne dogode rušenja poput ovoga, koje se dogodilo izvan Minneapolisa u 2007. Ili zamislite što biste mogli učiniti kada bi vam roboti mogli plivati kroz krv. Zar ne? "Fantastično putovanje", Isaac Asimov. Ili bi vas mogli operirati bez da vas razrežu. Ili bi mogli radikalno promijeniti način gradnje ako imamo malene robote koji rade kao termiti, i grade ove nevjerojatne osam metarske humke, učinkovito prozračene stanove za druge termite u Africi i Australiji.
So I think I've given you some of the possibilities of what we can do with these small robots. And we've made some advances so far, but there's still a long way to go, and hopefully some of you can contribute to that destination.
Mislim da sam vam dala neke od mogućnosti onoga što možemo činiti s ovim malim robotima. I napravili smo neke napretke do sada, ali još je dug put pred nama, i nadam se da će neki od vas doprinjeti tome cilju.
Thanks very much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)