TWIST : Twelve Bar Intelligently Simulated Tensegrity

Abstract: One of the biggest challenges of putting a robot on an extraterrestrial surface is the entry, descent and landing. By making the robot impact resistant, the need for landing thrusters and parachutes is reduced, lowering the weight and cost of an interplanetary robotic mission. The Dynamic Tensegrity Research Lab at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, is currently doing research in tensegrity robots, consisting of bars and cables creating a complex dynamic system. With motors on the cables, the system can shift its center of mass to create a ”rolling” locomotion and explore remote and dangerous areas. For octahedron tensegrities with 12 bars, intuitive locomotion patterns have been explored previously. The findings included difficulties in keeping the momentum, resulting in the robot getting stuck. In this thesis, over 7.000 configurations of a central pattern generator were tested. The parameters were generated with the Monte Carlo method, with the aim to allow the robot of keeping its momentum in the motion. The resulting locomotion behavior was simulated in NASA Tensegrity Robotic Toolkit. With the method described above, a central pattern generator for a 0.5 m in diameter 12 bar tensegrity of octahedron shape was found, capable of moving 10 m during the course of a 60 s simulation. This is about four times faster than traditional rovers such as NASA’s Curiosity, indicating the need of smaller, faster robots in addition to traditional types. This, together with the impact resistance resulting in a capability of moving in difficult terrain, makes this type of robot an integral part in any future space exploration mission.