Feldotto Benedikt, Morin Fabrice O, Knoll Alois
Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Real-Time Systems, Faculty of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Front Neurorobot. 2022 Apr 25;16:856727. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2022.856727. eCollection 2022.
The more we investigate the principles of motion learning in biological systems, the more we reveal the central role that body morphology plays in motion execution. Not only does anatomy define the kinematics and therefore the complexity of possible movements, but it now becomes clear that part of the computation required for motion control is offloaded to body dynamics (a phenomenon referred to as "Morphological Computation.") Consequentially, a proper design of body morphology is essential to carry out meaningful simulations on motor control of robotic and musculoskeletal systems. The design should not be fixed for simulation experiments beforehand, but is a central research aspect in every motion learning experiment that requires continuous adaptation during the experimental phase. We herein introduce a plugin for the 3D modeling suite Blender that enables researchers to design morphologies for simulation experiments in, particularly but not restricted to, the Neurorobotics Platform. We include design capabilities for both musculoskeletal bodies, as well as robotic systems in the Robot Designer. Thereby, we hope to not only foster understanding of biological motions and enabling better robot designs, but enabling true Neurorobotic experiments that may consist of biomimetic models such as tendon-driven robot as a mix of both or a transition between both biology and technology. This plugin helps researchers design and parameterize models with a Graphical User Interface and thus simplifies and speeds up the overall design process.
我们对生物系统中运动学习原理的研究越多，就越能揭示身体形态在运动执行中所起的核心作用。解剖结构不仅定义了运动学，进而决定了可能运动的复杂性，而且现在很明显，运动控制所需的部分计算被卸载到身体动力学上（这种现象被称为“形态计算”）。因此，合理设计身体形态对于对机器人和肌肉骨骼系统的运动控制进行有意义的模拟至关重要。该设计不应在模拟实验之前预先固定，而是每个运动学习实验的核心研究方面，在实验阶段需要不断调整。我们在此介绍一款适用于3D建模套件Blender的插件，它使研究人员能够为模拟实验设计形态，特别是但不限于神经机器人平台。我们在机器人设计器中包括了肌肉骨骼身体以及机器人系统的设计功能。因此，我们希望不仅能促进对生物运动的理解并实现更好的机器人设计，还能实现真正的神经机器人实验，这些实验可能由仿生模型组成，如肌腱驱动的机器人，作为两者的混合或两者之间的过渡。这个插件通过图形用户界面帮助研究人员设计模型并进行参数化，从而简化并加速了整个设计过程。
