A 'MAP' to find high-performing soft robot designs: Traversing complex design spaces using MAP-elites and Topology Optimization

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Hauptverfasser: Xie, Yue, Pinskier, Josh, Liow, Lois, Howard, David, Iida, Fumiya
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Xie, Yue
Pinskier, Josh
Liow, Lois
Howard, David
Iida, Fumiya
author_facet Xie, Yue
Pinskier, Josh
Liow, Lois
Howard, David
Iida, Fumiya
contents Soft robotics has emerged as the standard solution for grasping deformable objects, and has proven invaluable for mobile robotic exploration in extreme environments. However, despite this growth, there are no widely adopted computational design tools that produce quality, manufacturable designs. To advance beyond the diminishing returns of heuristic bio-inspiration, the field needs efficient tools to explore the complex, non-linear design spaces present in soft robotics, and find novel high-performing designs. In this work, we investigate a hierarchical design optimization methodology which combines the strengths of topology optimization and quality diversity optimization to generate diverse and high-performance soft robots by evolving the design domain. The method embeds variably sized void regions within the design domain and evolves their size and position, to facilitating a richer exploration of the design space and find a diverse set of high-performing soft robots. We demonstrate its efficacy on both benchmark topology optimization problems and soft robotic design problems, and show the method enhances grasp performance when applied to soft grippers. Our method provides a new framework to design parts in complex design domains, both soft and rigid.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_07591
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A 'MAP' to find high-performing soft robot designs: Traversing complex design spaces using MAP-elites and Topology Optimization
Xie, Yue
Pinskier, Josh
Liow, Lois
Howard, David
Iida, Fumiya
Robotics
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Soft robotics has emerged as the standard solution for grasping deformable objects, and has proven invaluable for mobile robotic exploration in extreme environments. However, despite this growth, there are no widely adopted computational design tools that produce quality, manufacturable designs. To advance beyond the diminishing returns of heuristic bio-inspiration, the field needs efficient tools to explore the complex, non-linear design spaces present in soft robotics, and find novel high-performing designs. In this work, we investigate a hierarchical design optimization methodology which combines the strengths of topology optimization and quality diversity optimization to generate diverse and high-performance soft robots by evolving the design domain. The method embeds variably sized void regions within the design domain and evolves their size and position, to facilitating a richer exploration of the design space and find a diverse set of high-performing soft robots. We demonstrate its efficacy on both benchmark topology optimization problems and soft robotic design problems, and show the method enhances grasp performance when applied to soft grippers. Our method provides a new framework to design parts in complex design domains, both soft and rigid.
title A 'MAP' to find high-performing soft robot designs: Traversing complex design spaces using MAP-elites and Topology Optimization
topic Robotics
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.07591