Intelligent Bionic Robots

A special issue of Robotics (ISSN 2218-6581). This special issue belongs to the section "Intelligent Robots and Mechatronics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 9546

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Interests: bionic underwater robots; intelligent control in bionic robots; reinforcement learning of robots; dynamics modeling in robotics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK
Interests: robotics; embedded systems; mechatronics; advanced manufacturing; multimodal human–machine interfaces; wearable sensors and systems; sensor integration and data fusion algorithms; biomedical signal processing; e-health; medical and surgical robotics; AI applications; intelligent control and learning algorithms; cooperative robots in search and rescue; networked sensors, systems, and robots
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

There is an abundance of creatures living on the earth, such as birds flying in the air, fish swimming in the water, and cheetahs running on the land. They have far greater abilities to deal with an uncertain world than humans, which has inspired our robotics research. Bionic robots aim to mimic the biological characteristics of these creatures and create novel means of solving problems faced by humans. Many kinds of bionic robots have been developed, such as multi-legged bionic robots, flapping-wing bionic robots, and fish-like bionic robots. To enhance the intelligence of bionic robots, a number of intelligent algorithms, namely bio-inspired algorithms, evolution-inspired algorithms, and structure-inspired algorithms, have been deployed. Intelligent bionic robots are an important direction of robot development and research and contribute to the field of science robotics.

This Special Issue aims to promote the most recent research and development in intelligent bionic robots. Papers are welcome on all topics related to intelligent bionic robots, including but not limited to:

  • Bio-inspired design;
  • Bionic intelligence;
  • Bionic materials and structures;
  • Bionics neural network;
  • Evolution-inspired algorithms;
  • Bio-inspired algorithms;
  • Bionic sensors and actuators;
  • Bionic sensing techniques;
  • Bio-inspired computation methods;
  • Bionic systems and robots;
  • Bionic multi-legged robots;
  • Bionic flapping-wing robots;
  • Bionic underwater robots.

Dr. Gang Chen
Prof. Dr. Huosheng Hu
Guest Editors

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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16 pages, 92907 KiB  
Article
The Claw: An Avian-Inspired, Large Scale, Hybrid Rigid-Continuum Gripper
by Mary E. Stokes, John K. Mohrmann, Chase G. Frazelle, Ian D. Walker and Ge Lv
Robotics 2024, 13(3), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics13030052 - 16 Mar 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2752
Abstract
Most robotic hands have been created at roughly the scale of the human hand, with rigid components forming the core structural elements of the fingers. This focus on the human hand has concentrated attention on operations within the human hand scale, and on [...] Read more.
Most robotic hands have been created at roughly the scale of the human hand, with rigid components forming the core structural elements of the fingers. This focus on the human hand has concentrated attention on operations within the human hand scale, and on the handling of objects suitable for grasping with current robot hands. In this paper, we describe the design, development, and testing of a four-fingered gripper which features a novel combination of actively actuated rigid and compliant elements. The scale of the gripper is unusually large compared to most existing robot hands. The overall goal for the hand is to explore compliant grasping of potentially fragile objects of a size not typically considered. The arrangement of the digits is inspired by the feet of birds, specifically raptors. We detail the motivation for this physical hand structure, its design and operation, and describe testing conducted to assess its capabilities. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the hand in grasping delicate objects of relatively large size and highlight some limitations of the underlying rigid/compliant hybrid design. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Bionic Robots)
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15 pages, 15508 KiB  
Article
Hand Prosthesis Sensorimotor Control Inspired by the Human Somatosensory System
by Enrica Stefanelli, Francesca Cordella, Cosimo Gentile and Loredana Zollo
Robotics 2023, 12(5), 136; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics12050136 - 30 Sep 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2599
Abstract
Prosthetic hand systems aim at restoring lost functionality in amputees. Manipulation and grasping are the main functions of the human hand, which are provided by skin sensitivity capable of protecting the hand from damage and perceiving the external environment. The present study aims [...] Read more.
Prosthetic hand systems aim at restoring lost functionality in amputees. Manipulation and grasping are the main functions of the human hand, which are provided by skin sensitivity capable of protecting the hand from damage and perceiving the external environment. The present study aims at proposing a novel control strategy which improves the ability of the prosthetic hand to interact with the external environment by fostering the interaction of tactile (forces and slipping) and thermoceptive sensory information and by using them to guarantee grasp stability and improve user safety. The control strategy is based on force control with an internal position loop and slip detection, which is able to manage temperature information thanks to the interaction with objects at different temperatures. This architecture has been tested on a prosthetic hand, i.e., the IH2 Azzurra developed by Prensilia s.r.l, in different temperature and slippage conditions. The prosthetic system successfully performed the grasping tasks by managing the tactile and thermal information simultaneously. In particular, the system is able to guarantee a stable grasp during the execution of the tasks. Additionally, in the presence of an external stimulus (thermal or slippage), the prosthetic hand is able to react and always reacts to the stimulus instantaneously (reaction times ≤ 0.04 s, comparable to the one of the human being), regardless of its nature and in accordance with the control strategy. In this way, the prosthetic device is protected from damaging temperatures, the user is alerted of a dangerous situation and the stability of the grasp is restored in the event of a slip. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Bionic Robots)
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28 pages, 26199 KiB  
Article
A Study of Energy-Efficient and Optimal Locomotion in a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle-Driven Snake Robot
by Marcela Lopez and Mahdi Haghshenas-Jaryani
Robotics 2023, 12(3), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics12030089 - 20 Jun 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2764
Abstract
This paper presents a study of energy efficiency and kinematic-based optimal design locomotion of a pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM)-driven snake-like robot. Although snake-like robots have several advantages over wheeled and track-wheeled mobile robots, their low energy-locomotion has limited their applications in long-range and [...] Read more.
This paper presents a study of energy efficiency and kinematic-based optimal design locomotion of a pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM)-driven snake-like robot. Although snake-like robots have several advantages over wheeled and track-wheeled mobile robots, their low energy-locomotion has limited their applications in long-range and outdoor fields. This work continues our previous efforts in designing and prototyping a muscle-driven snake-like robot to address their low energy efficiency limitation. An electro-pneumatic control hardware was developed to control the robot’s locomotion and a control algorithm for generating the lateral undulation gait. The energy efficiency of a single muscle (i.e., PAM), a single 2-link module of the robot, and a 6-link snake robot were also studied. Moreover, the power consumption was derived for the snake locomotion to determine the cost of transportation as the index for measuring the performance of the robot. Finally, the performance of the robot was analyzed and compared to similar models. Our analysis showed that the power consumption efficiency for our robot is 0.21, which is comparable to the reported range of 0.016–0.32 from other robots. In addition, the cost of transportation for our robot was determined to be 0.19 compared to the range of 0.01–0.75 reported for the other mobile robots. Finally, the range of motion for the joints of the robot is ±30, which is comparable to the reported range of motion of other snake-like robots, i.e., 25–45. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Bionic Robots)
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