China Daily, Shanghai, February 18. On February 18, a special robot "player" made his Winter Olympics debut at the "Ice Cube": curling throwing performance. I saw that it has a pair of middle "legs" to support the body, a pair of rear "legs" to step on the starter, and a pair of front "legs" for the "hands" to control the direction, movement and rotation speed of the curling, throwing hard and hitting Target!
This curling robot "player" is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology's national key research and development plan "Science and Technology Winter Olympics", led by Gao Feng, a professor at the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Shanghai Intelligent Manufacturing Function Platform Co., Ltd. The six-legged curling robot research team formed by the research team has developed the world's first six-legged curling robot that imitates the behavior of human pedaling, supporting sliding, and rotating curling.
Hexapod curling robot
The world's first hexapod robot that imitates the behavior of people throwing curling
Curling originated in Scotland in the 14th century and was a fashionable sport at that time. Since 1998, curling has been listed as an official event in the Winter Olympics. Curling is known as "ice chess". The throwing team members squat on the ice and slide on the ice surface, and gently rotate the curling box to control the direction of the shot; two teammates can use a special ice brush to brush the ice surface before curling. Controlling the direction and speed will test the physical and mental strength of the participants. Can human-led curling competitions be replaced by robots? After the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, wheeled curling robots appeared in the world. They are mainly driven by wheels, which is different from the behavior of people throwing curling.
"When a person throws curling, one leg supports the body, the other leg pedals the pedal, the eyes are aimed at the target, and the hand controls the speed and direction of the curling, which is a complex decision-making behavior. How to use the behavioral characteristics of people to throw curling , design the structure of the robot; how to identify the dynamic parameters of the contact between the ice surface and the robot according to the information of vision and force perception, so as to predict the trajectory of the robot's sliding and curling; how to control the robot according to the human decision-making method of throwing curling behavior, these are the technical challenges we encountered in developing the hexapod curling robot." Gao Feng said.
Humans control the direction and rotation speed of the curling with their hands, one leg supports the body, and the other leg pedals the starter—the six-legged robot designed by Shanghai Jiaotong University has these three behavioral functions of human throwing curling, and When a person throws curling, the division of labor between the hands and the feet is very consistent. This is the first hexapod curling robot in the world that imitates the behaviors of people pedaling, supporting sliding, and spinning curling.
Cheer on Olympians and perform at the Winter Olympics curling arena
Curling is not only a physical competition, but also an intellectual game. Therefore, the research team needs to train the robot according to the behavioral characteristics of people throwing curling, so that the robot can realize the behavioral decision-making method of people. During the curling process, the front legs of the hexapod robot are transformed into the functions of human hands to realize the movement of holding and rotating the kettle; the knees of the middle legs and the elbow joints of the front legs are combined into four points to contact the ice surface. It forms the function of human supporting legs; the rear legs step on the stepper to realize the function of pushing the robot to accelerate sliding. In addition, the front legs have a second throwing pot during the robot sliding movement to control the direction of the curling movement. , speed and angular velocity to achieve precise pitching and hitting functions. (figure 2)
After the curling action is completed, the robot changes from the curling-throwing configuration to the standing configuration, and can walk on the ice surface and search for the starter. (Figure 3) The roughness and friction characteristics of the ice surface are significantly affected by the production and use time of the ice surface. The robot needs to identify the friction characteristics of the ice surface through visual and force detection information to establish the power of the robot and curling. Learning model, so as to realize the robot motion feature planning and precise curling throwing (Figure 4) and hitting (Figure 5). The robot performed a curling throw during the Winter Olympics curling competition to cheer on Olympians.
Robot looking for stepper switches from standing to pitching
Robot transitions from pitching to standing and walking
The robot throws the pot to the base camp
Robot hits curling out of base camp
Can be a "sparring player" and can also play "human-machine" curling competitions
The six-legged curling robot can imitate the behavior of people throwing curling, has visual and force perception ability, can realize the digitization of curling throwing movement, become the daily training equipment for curling athletes, and can also assist athletes in the decision-making and planning of curling throwing , as a sparring partner for the athlete. During the interval between curling competitions, the curling performances performed by curling robots or man-machine competitions can also add a lot of fun to the curling competition, make more people like curling, and stimulate young people's interest in science and technology innovation.
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