Skip to content


Open Source Tensegrity Simulator Released!

[UPDATE: NTRTv1.1 was released on 1/9/15]

I am *very* pleased to announce that the physics based tensegrity simulator we have been developing is now released as the NASA Tensegrity Robotics Toolkit (NTRT), Apache 2 licensed open-source project. It has been a long road to get here, including an 18 month review process by NASA legal. One of the key accomplishments of this beta release is to put together a tool chain which makes it easy to explore the relationship between tensegrity structures and how they move. We accomplish this with the following features:
a) A set of builder tools which make it easy to define novel tensegrity structures
b) The ability to automatically generate neuroscience inspired Central Pattern Generator control networks based on the physical layout of the structure.
c) A set of learning tools that enable the optimization of parameters for that control network for efficient locomotion.

You can see the results of this in the following video where we explore different “snake-like” tensegrity structures and find that each structure has a different locomotion gait. I’m especially interested in the results of the final experiment when we added ribs to the vertebrae and discovered a very natural looking slithering gait.

To find out more about the NTRT simulator, please visit its official release page, or go directly to the Source on GitHub.

And here is another great video of the rolling “SUPERball” Robot moving over a wide range of terrains. We used a lot of machine learning techniques to develop these control capabilities for this robot.

Posted in Robots, Tensegrity.

Tagged with , , , , , , .


Talking about Intelligence at the SETI Institute

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of presenting at the SETI Institute. SETI == Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence — so a very fitting place to share my ideas on human intelligence, how that relates to motion, our bodies, tensegrity structures, robotics, and how we are applying those ideas to create new robots to explore other planets. It was a fun talk and a great audience, and it was recorded, so you can watch it!

Posted in Brains, Presentations, Robots, Tensegrity.


Two Papers accepted to the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2014

I’m really excited to share the news that two tensegrity robotics papers from our lab have been accepted to ICRA 2014!

Thanks to all the hard work of authors — these were written at the end of a wildly productive summer here in the Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab.

Jeffrey Michael Friesen, Alexandra Pogue, Thomas Bewley, Mauricio de Oliveira, Robert E. Skelton, Vytas SunSpiral, “A Compliant Tensegrity Robot for Exploring Duct Systems”, To Appear in Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Hong Kong, 2014

Jonathan Bruce, Ken Caluwaerts, Atil Iscen, Vytas SunSpiral, “Design and Evolution of a Modular Tensegrity Robot Platform”, To Appear in Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Hong Kong, 2014

UPDATE: these papers have been published and can be downloaded from the “publications” tab above.

Posted in Robots, Tensegrity.


Tensegrity Robotics Goes Viral

Wow! It has been an interesting couple of weeks!
Back on Dec. 23rd IEEE Spectrum published an interview with us on our “SuperBall Bot” – a tensegrity robot for Landing and Planetary Exploration. From there the news went viral and was covered by around 60 media outlets around the world! The original IEEE blog post was well written and based on a direct interview with us. The other media…. Well, lets just say that it was an excellent lesson in the horrible quality of science reporting. There were some excellent pieces here and there where folks had done actual research and dug up information on our project from our past papers and this blog (thank you!) — but much of the news coverage was wildly inaccurate — with factual inventions which were then copied and repeated by others.

Here is the video interview that was associated with the IEEE blog. This is a great video, and I’m glad it is available to share. In the first two weeks it was viewed about 280,000 times. neat!

For the fun of it, here are some of the other media articles that we found. I had to stop eventually, so I know this is an incomplete list.

1.
Source: Los Angeles Times SCIENCE
Date: December 30, 2013, 4:58 p.m.
Title: NASA ‘super ball bot’ could one day bounce onto Saturn’s moon Titan
URL:http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-nasa-super-ball-bot-explore-saturn-moon-titan-20131230,0,7804795.story#axzz2p0sLVqh0

2.
Source: Huffington Post
Date: Posted: 12/29/2013 12:20 pm EST | Updated: 12/30/2013 2:27 pm EST
Title: Will NASA’s New Squishy ‘Super Ball Bot’ Be Next To ‘Dance’ On Saturn’s Moon?
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/29/nasa-squishy-super-ball-bot-video_n_4509688.html
(French Version URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/12/27/super-ball-bo-etrange-futur-robot-nasa-titan_n_4508164.html)
(Title: Super Ball Bot : l’étrange futur robot de la Nasa qui pourrait aller sur Titan)

3.
Source: The Atlantic
Date: DEC 30 2013, 11:27 AM ET
Title: NASA’s Next Rover May Be This Crazy Walking Sphere
URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/nasas-next-rover-may-be-this-crazy-walking-sphere/282707/

4.
Source: IT Wire
Title: NASA developing Super Ball Bots for robotic exploration
Date: 30 December 2013
URL: http://www.itwire.com/science-news/space/62710-nasa-developing-super-ball-bots-for-robotic-exploration

5.
Source: International Science Times
Date: December 27, 2013 4:51 PM EST
Title: ‘Super Ball Bot’ Rover: NASA’s Crazy Wheel-Free Robot Could Bounce Around Planets One Day
URL: http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6586/20131227/nasa-wheel-free-rover-super-ball-bot.htm

6.
Source: Phys.org
Date: Dec 28, 2013
Title: NASA team studies ball bot as future space explorer
URL: http://phys.org/news/2013-12-nasa-team-ball-bot-future.html

7.
Source: Science Recorder
Date: December 29, 2013
Title: NASA’s Super Ball Bot to conquer space exploration
URL: http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/nasas-super-ball-bot-to-conquer-space-exploration/

Continued…

Posted in Robots, Tensegrity.