Researchers at苏黎世have used 3D printing to build an autonomous cat-like robot that’s capable of imitating the movements of real-life felines.
3D printed using SLS, FDM and MJF over nine months, the ‘Dyana’ bot features impact resistant thigh pads, which allow it to run freely without risking one of its nine lives. More predator than house cat in size, the droid is able to enact computer-animated movements and has its own programmable ‘character,’ which is designed to combine animation and robotics in a novel ‘animatronics’ application.
“There’s huge potential in the design and character [of Dyana],” explains Andrina Grimm, Technical Lead on the project. “We want to build characters in the real world, and create a system where you can add different characters, and have different emotions shown on a robot.”
将Am与动画融合在一起
Dyana has been built as part of an interdisciplinary focus project between ETH Zurich, theZurich University of Applied Sciences,苏黎世艺术大学and theUniversity of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, involving a total of fourteen bachelor students. Each of these engineers were new to animatronics, a field that’s essentially dedicated to the creation of lifelike robots, which move in a natural rather than a robotic way.
Aiming to progress towards this wider goal, the Dyana project’s mechanical and design lead Andrina Grimm, says that her team set out to “combine the field of animation and characters from movies, with robots that are agile and able to move around in the real world,” and develop a unique character “that moves on its own.”
However, she adds that one of the main challenges facing animatronics engineers is making the resulting robots capable of playing back pre-animated movements, and ‘walking’ in the real world. Such bots also need to be robust, so that they don’t capitulate under repetitive loads, and in the case of the ETH Zurich project, the team faced a nine-month deadline that required Dyana to be rapidly produced.
制造猫科动物的伴侣
In order to construct Dyana as quickly and with as much design freedom as possible, the student engineers began by 3D modelling their bot, before going on to 3D print its polymeric shell. Doing so allowed the team to connect the robotic feline’s interfaces and curved outer plating in a streamlined way, and according to Grimm, this also enabled them to “add a character and feeling to its whole body.”
At different stages of the project, the team utilized the FDM, MJF and SLS technologies, allowing them to rapidly iterate their cat-bot’s design, but it was the latter that was eventually used to create its outer shell, due to the ultra-lightweight parts it was found to yield.
“SLS technology was used for the thighs and shoulders,” explains Grimm. “With PA12, we were able to get parts that were sturdy enough for the robot to sustain impacts, yet flexible enough to support curved surfaces.”
“With Sintratec technology we were able to design freely and get sturdy, yet lightweight parts – ideal properties for building robots.”
Laser sintered usingSintratec这些机器人大腿具有用于机械接口的专用空间，以及最终用途的饰面，这意味着它们不需要在涂抹前进行打磨。印刷后，将零件喷涂，与硅胶垫混合并附着在Dyana上，这是一个过程，从而使身体的表现优于传统模制热量型机器人的身体。
“In our project, we showed that it is possible to use 3D printing to create a shell for a robot, which has not been done before,” concluded Grimm. “While before, a thermoplast has been used, with 3D printing we still have sturdy parts but they are also flexible, and they don’t break easily in impacts.”
尽管当前版本的Dyana能够执行似乎自然的动作，但该团队继续致力于使其独立执行这些动作。结果，工程师尚未完全实现他们的动画目标，但是他们仍然怀有将“情感”上传到机器人的过程的雄心，他们认为将来可能是合理的。
It’s raining cats and dogs
尽管Eth Zurich的Animatronic Cat代表了3D打印的非常独特的应用，但了解该技术也被用来创建了Man最好的朋友的几种机器人版本，这可能会让读者感到惊讶。就在上个月XRobots’ James Bruton揭示了他的第三版“ Opendog”机器人犬，可以使用每天的3D打印LulzBot TAZ Workhorsemachine.
同样，在2020年2月，NYU’s Tandon School of Engineeringand theMax Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, revealed their own‘Solo 8’ open-source robotic dog。该机器人伴侣用3D打印的外壳，低成本的现成零件和简化的模块化组件建造，被设计为竞争对手Boston Dynamics’offering, which is priced at around $75,000.
When it comes to making sentient animatronics, scientists atFlorida Atlantic University通过使用AI算法来创建‘astro，’聪明的机器人狗。Featuring a Doberman-like 3D printed head with a computer-simulated brain, Astro can reportedly be trained to respond to vocal inputs or visual signals.
To stay up to date with the latest 3D printing news, don’t forget to subscribe to the3D打印行业newsletter或跟随我们Twitter或喜欢我们的页面Facebook。
For a deeper dive into additive manufacturing, you can now subscribe to ourYoutubechannel, featuring discussion, debriefs, and shots of 3D printing in-action.
Are you looking for a job in the additive manufacturing industry? Visit3D Printing Jobsfor a selection of roles in the industry.
Featured image shows ETH Zurich’s Andrina Grimm alongside her ‘Dyana’ robotic cat. Photo via Sintratec.
