In theAtlanta Botanical Garden, Georgia, visitors over the next several months will be treated to the peculiar sight of a sloth robot on a mission to save some of the world’s most endangered species.
与Slothbot见面，这是一种新的高科技，一种缓慢移动且节能的机器人，可以在树木中徘徊以监测下面的动物，植物和环境。由机器人工程师建造的几个3D打印组件Georgia Institute of Technology, the SlothBot is currently being tested near the Garden’s popular Canopy Walk.
懒惰has been designed to take advantage of the low-energy lifestyle of real sloths; it’s an example of how being slow can sometimes be ideal for certain applications. Powered by solar panels and using innovative power management technology, SlothBot moves along a cable strung between two large trees as it monitors the temperature, weather, carbon dioxide levels, and other information in the Garden’s 30-acre midtown Atlanta forest.
“SlothBot embraces slowness as a design principle,” explains Magnus Egerstedt, professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“That’s not how robots are typically designed today, but being slow and hyper-energy efficient will allow SlothBot to linger in the environment to observe things we can only see by being present continuously for months, or even years.”
Taking it slow with the SlothBot
最初的懒惰原型是由Egerstedt与博士一起设计的。学生Gennaro notomista和Yousef Emam在2019年。该团队使用FDM 3D打印零件进行齿轮和电线转换机构，机器人需要通过树木网络爬网。
Measuring three feet long, the new SlothBot in the Atlanta Botanical Garden also features a 3D printed shell, which helps to protect its motors, gearing, batteries, and sensing equipment from the weather. The robot is powered by a pair of photovoltaic panels and designed to linger in the forest canopy continuously for months, only moving when necessary to measure environmental changes. Such changes include weather and chemical factors, which can only be observed with a long-term presence. It will also move to locate sunlight when its batteries need recharging.
在亚特兰大植物在测试阶段Garden, SlothBot will operate on a single 100-foot cable, but in larger environmental applications, it will be able to switch from cable to cable to cover more territory.”The most exciting goal we’ll demonstrate with SlothBot is the union of robotics and technology with conservation,” said Emily Coffey, vice president for conservation and research at the Garden. “We do conservation research on imperiled plants and ecosystems around the world, and SlothBot will help us find new and exciting ways to advance our research and conservation goals.”
The SlothBot project is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. Researchers suggest that the robot has the potential to help scientists better understand the abiotic factors affecting critical ecosystems. It can, therefore, act as a new tool for developing information needed to protect rare species and endangered ecosystems.
“SlothBot could do some of our research remotely and help us understand what’s happening with pollinators, interactions between plants and animals, and other phenomena that are difficult to observe otherwise,” Coffey added. “With the rapid loss of biodiversity and with more than a quarter of the world’s plants potentially heading toward extinction, SlothBot offers us another way to work toward conserving those species.”
机器人的设计灵感来自于对哥斯达黎加葡萄园的一场访问，在那里他看到两脚趾的树懒沿着头顶电线爬行，在树冠上寻找食物。他解释说：“事实证明，他们在战略上很慢，如果我们想长时间部署机器人，这就是我们所需要的。”
As well as conservation, the SlothBot could have applications for precision agriculture, where the robot’s camera and other sensory equipment could provide early detection of crop diseases, measure humidity, and watch for insect infestation. After testing in the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the researchers hope to move SlothBot to South America to observe orchid pollination or the lives of endangered frogs.
由Gennaro Notomista和Yousef Emam，本科生Amy Yao和博士后研究员Sean Wilson组成的研究团队考虑了Slothbot的多种运动技术。尽管车轮机器人很常见，但它们容易遇到自然世界中的许多障碍，例如岩石或泥土。在频谱的另一端，飞行机器人需要太多的能量才能持续很长时间。因此，埃格斯特特（Egerstedt）观察到电线爬行的懒惰非常重要。
“It’s really fascinating to think about robots becoming part of the environment, a member of an ecosystem,” he said. “While we’re not building an anatomical replica of the living sloth, we believe our robot can be integrated to be part of the ecosystem it’s observing like a real sloth.”
3D printing in the robot revolution
3D printing has played a significant role in designing various functional robots intended to help improve different facets of society. For example, last year scientists atFlorida Atlantic University（FAU）使用3D打印深度学习，人工智能和机器人技术来创建Astro，一只聪明的机器人狗that can see, hear, train, and learn. Potential applications for Astro include a number of useful tasks such as the detection of guns and explosives to assist police, the military, and security personnel. It can also be programmed to operate as a service dog for the visually impaired or provide medical diagnostic monitoring.
3D printing is also playing a key role in aNASA寻求带来的项目软机器人技术到空间。软机器人是由高度灵活的材料构建的，可实现与传统机器人无法复制的生物相似的新机器人运动，因此为空间中的机器人提供了新的可能应用。尽管在早期阶段，3D打印在研究中发挥了关键作用，已被用来开发软机器人执行器，这是对机器人的运动部件进行动画和控制的关键。
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特色图片显示花园里的懒惰机器人。通过佐治亚理工学院的照片。
