The Nereis virens worm inspired new research out of the MIT Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics. Its jaw is made of soft organic material, but is as strong as harder materials such as human dentin. Photo: Alexander Semenov/Wikimedia Commons

A new material that naturally adapts to changing environments was inspired by the strength, stability, and mechanical performance of the jaw of a marine worm. The protein material, which was designed and modeled by researchers from the Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics (LAMM) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), and synthesized in collaboration with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, expands and contracts based on changing pH levels and ion concentrations. It was developed by studying how the jaw of Nereis virens, a sand worm, forms and adapts in different environments.

The resulting pH- and ion-sensitive material is able to respond and react to its environment. Understanding this naturally-occurring process can be particularly helpful for active control of the motion or deformation of actuators for soft robotics and sensors without using external power supply or complex electronic controlling devices. It could also be used to build autonomous structures.

“The ability of dramatically altering the material properties, by changing its hierarchical structure starting at the chemical level, offers exciting new opportunities to tune the material, and to build upon the natural material design towards new engineering applications,” wrote Markus J. Buehler, the McAfee Professor of Engineering, head of CEE, and senior author of the paper.

The research, recently published in ACS Nano, shows that depending on the ions and pH levels in the environment, the protein material expands and contracts into different geometric patterns. When the conditions change again, the material reverts back to its original shape. This makes it particularly useful for smart composite materials with tunable mechanics and self-powered roboticists that use pH value and ion condition to change the material stiffness or generate functional deformations.

Finding inspiration in the strong, stable jaw of a marine worm

In order to create bio-inspired materials that can be used for soft robotics, sensors, and other uses — such as that inspired by the Nereis — engineers and scientists at LAMM and AFRL needed to first understand how these materials form in the Nereis worm, and how they ultimately behave in various environments. This understanding involved the development of a model that encompasses all different length scales from the atomic level, and is able to predict the material behavior. This model helps to fully understand the Nereis worm and its exceptional strength.

“Working with AFRL gave us the opportunity to pair our atomistic simulations with experiments,” said CEE research scientist Francisco Martin-Martinez. AFRL experimentally synthesized a hydrogel, a gel-like material made mostly of water, which is composed of recombinant Nvjp-1 protein responsible for the structural stability and impressive mechanical performance of the Nereis jaw. The hydrogel was used to test how the protein shrinks and changes behavior based on pH and ions in the environment.

The Nereis jaw is mostly made of organic matter, meaning it is a soft protein material with a consistency similar to gelatin. In spite of this, its strength, which has been reported to have a hardness ranging between 0.4 and 0.8 gigapascals (GPa), is similar to that of harder materials like human dentin. “It’s quite remarkable that this soft protein material, with a consistency akin to Jell-O, can be as strong as calcified minerals that are found in human dentin and harder materials such as bones,” Buehler said.

At MIT, the researchers looked at the makeup of the Nereis jaw on a molecular scale to see what makes the jaw so strong and adaptive. At this scale, the metal-coordinated crosslinks, the presence of metal in its molecular structure, provide a molecular network that makes the material stronger and at the same time make the molecular bond more dynamic, and ultimately able to respond to changing conditions. At the macroscopic scale, these dynamic metal-protein bonds result in an expansion/contraction behavior.

Combining the protein structural studies from AFRL with the molecular understanding from LAMM, Buehler, Martin-Martinez, CEE Research Scientist Zhao Qin, and former PhD student Chia-Ching Chou ’15, created a multiscale model that is able to predict the mechanical behavior of materials that contain this protein in various environments. “These atomistic simulations help us to visualize the atomic arrangements and molecular conformations that underlay the mechanical performance of these materials,” Martin-Martinez said.

Specifically, using this model the research team was able to design, test, and visualize how different molecular networks change and adapt to various pH levels, taking into account the biological and mechanical properties.

By looking at the molecular and biological makeup of a the Nereis virens and using the predictive model of the mechanical behavior of the resulting protein material, the LAMM researchers were able to more fully understand the protein material at different scales and provide a comprehensive understanding of how such protein materials form and behave in differing pH settings. This understanding guides new material designs for soft robots and sensors.

Identifying the link between environmental properties and movement in the material

The predictive model explained how the pH sensitive materials change shape and behavior, which the researchers used for designing new PH-changing geometric structures. Depending on the original geometric shape tested in the protein material and the properties surrounding it, the LAMM researchers found that the material either spirals or takes a Cypraea shell-like shape when the pH levels are changed. These are only some examples of the potential that this new material could have for developing soft robots, sensors, and autonomous structures.

Using the predictive model, the research team found that the material not only changes form, but it also reverts back to its original shape when the pH levels change. At the molecular level, histidine amino acids present in the protein bind strongly to the ions in the environment. This very local chemical reaction between amino acids and metal ions has an effect in the overall conformation of the protein at a larger scale. When environmental conditions change, the histidine-metal interactions change accordingly, which affect the protein conformation and in turn the material response.

“Changing the pH or changing the ions is like flipping a switch. You switch it on or off, depending on what environment you select, and the hydrogel expands or contracts” said Martin-Martinez.

LAMM found that at the molecular level, the structure of the protein material is strengthened when the environment contains zinc ions and certain pH levels. This creates more stable metal-coordinated crosslinks in the material’s molecular structure, which makes the molecules more dynamic and flexible.

This insight into the material’s design and its flexibility is extremely useful for environments with changing pH levels. Its response of changing its figure to changing acidity levels could be used for soft robotics. “Most soft robotics require power supply to drive the motion and to be controlled by complex electronic devices. Our work toward designing of multifunctional material may provide another pathway to directly control the material property and deformation without electronic devices,” said Qin.

By studying and modeling the molecular makeup and the behavior of the primary protein responsible for the mechanical properties ideal for Nereis jaw performance, the LAMM researchers are able to link environmental properties to movement in the material and have a more comprehensive understanding of the strength of the Nereis jaw.

The research was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) for the simulations.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a $6.1 million, five-year award to accelerate fundamental research on wireless communication and networking technologies through the foundation’s Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program.

Through the PAWR Project Office (PPO), award recipients US Ignite, Inc. and Northeastern University will collaborate with NSF and industry partners to establish and oversee multiple city-scale testing platforms across the United States. The PPO will manage nearly $100 million in public and private investments over the next seven years.

“NSF is pleased to have the combined expertise from US Ignite, Inc. and Northeastern University leading the project office for our PAWR program,” said Jim Kurose, NSF assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. “The planned research platforms will provide an unprecedented opportunity to enable research in faster, smarter, more responsive, and more robust wireless communication, and move experimental research beyond the lab — with profound implications for science and society.”

Over the last decade, the use of wireless, internet-connected devices in the United States has nearly doubled. As the momentum of this exponential growth continues, the need for increased capacity to accommodate the corresponding internet traffic also grows. This surge in devices, including smartphones, connected tablets and wearable technology, places an unprecedented burden on conventional 4G LTE and public Wi-Fi networks, which may not be able to keep pace with the growing demand.

NSF established the PAWR program to foster use-inspired, fundamental research and development that will move beyond current 4G LTE and Wi-Fi capabilities and enable future advanced wireless networks. Through experimental research platforms that are at the scale of small cities and communities and designed by the U.S. academic and industry wireless research community, PAWR will explore robust new wireless devices, communication techniques, networks, systems and services that will revolutionize the nation’s wireless systems. These platforms aim to support fundamental research that will enhance broadband connectivity and sustain U.S. leadership and economic competitiveness in the telecommunications sector for many years to come.

“Leading the PAWR Project Office is a key component of US Ignite’s mission to help build the networking foundation for smart communities,” said William Wallace, executive director of US Ignite, Inc., a public-private partnership that aims to support ultra-high-speed, next-generation applications for public benefit. “This effort will help develop the advanced wireless networks needed to enable smart and connected communities to transform city services.”

Establishing the PPO with this initial award is the first step in launching a long-term, public-private partnership to support PAWR. Over the next seven years, PAWR will take shape through two multi-stage phases:

• Design and Development. The PPO will assume responsibility for soliciting and vetting proposals to identify the platforms for advanced wireless research and work closely with sub-awardee organizations to plan the design, development, deployment and initial operations of each platform.
• Deployment and Initial Operations. The PPO will establish and manage each platform and document best practices as it progresses through the lifecycle.

“We are delighted that our team of wireless networking researchers has been selected to take the lead of the PAWR Project Office in partnership with US Ignite, Inc.,” said Dr. Nadine Aubry, dean of the college of engineering and university distinguished professor at Northeastern University. “I believe that PAWR, by bringing together academia, industry, government and communities, has the potential to make a transformative impact through advances spanning fundamental research and field platforms in actual cities.”

The PPO will work closely with NSF, industry partners and the wireless research community in all aspects of PAWR planning, implementation and management. Over the next seven years, NSF anticipates investing $50 million in PAWR, combined with approximately $50 million in cash and in-kind contributions from over 25 companies and industry associations. The PPO will disperse these investments to support the selected platforms.

Additional information can be found on the PPO webpage.

This announcement will also be highlighted this week during the panel discussion, “Wireless Network Innovation: Smart City Foundation,” at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

Array of Things is designed as a “fitness tracker” for the city of Chicago, collecting new streams of data on Chicago’s environment, infrastructure, and activity. Credit: Rob Mitchum/Urban Center for Computation and Data

From autonomous vehicles to flash flood alert systems, technology transforms how people lead their daily lives and how local cities and communities function.

Last September, the Administration launched the National Smart Cities Initiative to help communities tackle local challenges and improve city and municipality services. Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) — the lead federal agency in the effort — announced more than $60 million in Smart Cities-related grants for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, with additional investments planned for FY 2017. This new funding adds to the nearly $40 million the agency awarded last year to support researchers working to design, adapt and manage the smart and connected communities of the future.

“The effective integration of technology and data into decision making and physical infrastructure has the ability to transform society, allowing local cities and communities to overcome physical, social, economic, and infrastructural challenges,” said Jim Kurose, assistant director of NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. “NSF-supported research in this area will help cultivate more livable, workable, sustainable and connected communities.”

The grants bring academic researchers from a range of disciplines together with community stakeholders and civic leaders. Through research that integrates digital tools and engineering solutions into the physical world, these partners will work to solve important challenges in health and wellness, energy efficiency, building automation, infrastructure and public safety.

“New understanding and innovations gained from NSF-funded research in Smart and Connected Communities will help measure and shape the pulse of communities’ physical and social infrastructures to improve the quality and efficiency of our lives in America’s cities, now and for our future,” said Grace Wang, acting assistant director of NSF for Engineering.

NSF has long supported the fundamental research that underlies smart and connected communities. This research has included advanced networking and connectivity, sensing, real-time data analytics, control, automation and decision-making. The agency has also been instrumental in transitioning these technologies to widespread use. For example, since 2012, the US Ignite initiative seeded the development of numerous new “gigabit application prototypes,” capable of processing large amounts of information in real-time, which has improved regional radar systems, autonomous vehicle management, and more.

Severe storms and rapidly accumulating rain recently contributed to historic flooding that caused extreme damage to the main street of Ellicott City, located not far from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) campus. Credit: Photo collections from the Office of the Maryland Governor, managed by the Maryland State Archives. [CC BY 2.0]

Today’s new NSF investments in support of the Smart Cities initiative include:

• $24.5 million planned investment in Smart and Connected Communities for FY 2017, including an award solicitation exclusively focused on fundamental research and research capacity-building that will transform our nation’s cities and communities for the future. This program will develop a robust, multidisciplinary, diverse research workforce capable of addressing the challenges that our cities and communities face, with a focus on collaboration and partnership between researchers and community stakeholders to improve the quality of life for all.
• $10 million in new awards to develop and scale next-generation internet applications and technologies through the US Ignite program. These awards provide citizens with access to gigabit-enabled networks and services, bringing data and analytics to decision-makers in real time. The focus of the research ranges from the development of advanced networking technology to the creation of application and service prototypes that leverage advanced technology.
• $8.5 million in new awards for high-risk, high-reward research through Smart and Connected Communities. These Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) projects, combined with supplemental funding to existing NSF-funded grants, represent NSF’s initial efforts to grow a Smart and Connected Communities research community and pilot new research approaches. This includes $300,000 to a multidisciplinary team of researchers developing a new network architecture to expand internet access and engagement, and support community-building on Native American reservations.
• $7 million in new Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity projects that translate breakthrough discoveries into emerging technologies through academic-industry collaborations. Such technologies can transform smart service systems, such as smart hazard notification systems, smart buildings and sensor networks to improve transportation efficiency.
• $4 million in new Cyber-Physical Systems awards focused on Smart and Connected Communities. These awards support research that integrates computing, networking and physical systems — for example, in self-driving cars and smart buildings. Collectively, these awards are helping to establish the foundation for Smart Cities and the Internet of Things.
• $2 million in new “Spokes” that extend the Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs. These awards will use data science to improve the smart electric grid, keep bridges safer, grow better crops through the use of drone technology, and allow students to conduct citizen science on air pollution.
• $1.5 million in new Smart and Connected Health research awards with a focus on Smart and Connected Communities. These awards will support the development of next-generation health-care solutions that leverage sensor technology, information and machine learning technology, decision support systems, modeling of behavioral and cognitive processes, and more. This includes $300,000 to a multidisciplinary team of researchers to integrate community and clinical data to model the evolution of influenza in communities, supplementing prior investment by the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
• $1.4 million in new Big Data research focused on Smart and Connected Communities. These awards will drive innovation in data analytics and data-driven decision making to fuel the growth and development of the communities of the future.
• $1 million for researchers to participate in the 2016 NIST Global City Teams Challenge, supporting high-risk, high-reward research on the effective integration of networked computing systems and physical systems to meet community challenges. This includes $250,000 for real-time monitoring and detection of flash floods in several Maryland cities.
• $1 million in new research and capacity-building awards that support lifelong learning, which is critical to cities and communities of the future. The awards will leverage networks and technology to foster lifelong learning in multiple formal and informal settings, enabling students to solve problems that arise within their communities.

Through the programs listed above and the projects they support, computer and information scientists, engineers, and social, behavioral, and economic scientists will collaborate with industries, non-profits, local governments and anchor institutions, such as schools, libraries and hospitals. The effort will continue to nurture and grow a research community focused on smart and connected communities, and will help train and prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers to advance solutions that improve tomorrow’s cities and communities.

Image shows the “MuddyBot” robot that uses the locomotion principles of the mudskipper to move through a trackway filled with granular materials. The robot has two limbs and a powerful tail, with motion provided by electric motors.
Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech

Could a tail have allowed ancient vertebrates to make the transition from water to land?

Reporting in Science today, researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Clemson University and National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis described results of a groundbreaking study to answer this question using amphibious fish, a custom-built robot and mathematical models of movement.

The study tested the hypothesis that coordinated tail movement played an important role in evolution of terrestrial vertebrates. The researchers found that, for the first critical step out of an aqueous environment and onto a riverbank or mudflat, stabilizing the body with a tail provided substantial benefits.

(video credit: Georgia Institute of Technology, Clemson University, Carnegie Mellon University)

The effort, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office and the Army Research Laboratory, brought together experts in physics, biology, robotics and mathematics who explored the question through a variety of experimental methods.

Daniel Goldman, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics and the principal investigator on the NSF award that supported the work, says he has long been obsessed with the question of how the first creatures moved onto land.

“I was interested in evolutionary biology from a natural history perspective: imagining the grand scope of life on Earth and trying to understand how animals lived hundreds of millions of years ago and in this case, trying to understand how major transitions in behavior happened.” Goldman says. “For me this has been a nice integration of my interests applied to a question which I just think is fascinating: what did the earliest animals do when they were trying to crawl around on land?”

To answer the question, he and his collaborators took a three-pronged approach.

First, they explored the behavior and body mechanics of the African mudskipper — an amphibious fish that lives in tidal areas near shore and uses its front fins and tail to move on land with a “crutching” motion. The mudskipper is one of a handful of living organisms considered to be potentially close in body structure to the first terrestrial vertebrates.

Researchers study the motion of mudskippers to understand how early terrestrial animals might have moved about on mud and sand. This animal was photographed at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.
Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech

In co-author Richard Blob’s lab at Clemson University, researchers recorded the movements of mudskippers in an environment akin to riverbanks where early land-dwellers may have emerged to see how they behaved.

“We found when mudskippers are using their tail on a sufficiently inclined sandy slope they do pretty well and when they don’t, they don’t do well,” Goldman concluded.

Georgia Tech Associate Professor Dan Goldman with the MuddyBot robot in the trackway where its motion was studied.
Credit: John Toon, Georgia Tech

Next, the researchers developed a simplified, mudskipper-like version of a robot, which they call “MuddyBot,” on which they could systematically vary the angle and movements of the robot’s flipper-like limbs and tail. They used MuddyBot to find out which coordinated motions of limb and tail were most effective on granular surfaces of different inclines. They call this approach “robophysics” — a novel way to understanding the behavior of long-lost species.

Finally, they used a mathematical and engineering method called “geometric mechanics” (developed in the 1980s by physicist and Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek and his student Alfred Shapere) to analyze all the possible ways the MuddyBot can move in space and on different surfaces. This helps determine what types of movement may or may not have allowed the creature to pull itself up onto a sandy or muddy slope. This process also involved developing a better understanding of the physics of sand and the way that a granular medium can compress or slip when something tries to move on it.

The variety of approaches provided the teams with quantitative evidence to support the idea that the first locomotors may have had tails and may have used a crutching motion to move out of the water.

“Insight from these experiments led us to hypothesize that propulsive use of the tail, an appendage that has received relatively little attention in previous studies of the invasion of land, may have been the critical adaptation that allowed these early walkers to gain ground on challenging substrates,” says Benjamin McInroe, a co-author on the paper and then an Georgia Tech undergraduate (now a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley) who analyzed the mudskipper data provided by the Clemson team.

“Professor Goldman and his collaborators are combining physics and engineering prototyping approaches to understand the physical principles that allow animals to move in different environments,” says Krastan Blagoev, program director in the NSF Division of Physics. “This novel approach to living organisms promises to bring to biological sciences higher predictive power and at the same time uncover engineering principles that we have never imagined before.”

The team’s well-documented and analytic-rich findings only chart the critical first step out of the aqueous environment and not the full progression up a riverbank and onto level ground. After that first step, things get even more complicated because sand flows in a way that scientists don’t yet have the physics to describe.

“Even this ridiculously seemingly simple little crutching motion with coordinated tail use confronts our ignorance in three or four different disciplines: biology, paleontology, robotics, and mathematics,” says Goldman. “That’s a summary of how far away we are from really understanding it.”

Instead of being discouraged by this fact, the realization motivates Goldman.

“That’s the great joy in all this,” he says. “Just looking at these simple problems, there’s a huge amount of insight to be had from applying new tools.”

The research provides a rigorous approach to studying evolutionary questions in the future by combining animal, robotic and mathematical approaches. It even may improve designs for robots that can move on sand or loose dirt and help in search and rescue missions – a focus of Howie Choset’s work at Carnegie Mellon University.

“Our computer modeling tools allow us to visualize, and therefore better understand, how the mudskipper incorporates its tail and flipper motions to locomote,” says Howie Choset, a professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. “This work also will advance robotics in those cases where a robot needs to surmount challenging terrains with various inclinations.”

It is impossible to say for sure yet if the earliest locomotors used a crutching behavior like the mudskipper, Goldman says. For that reason, the team is now making robots to test some alternative possibilities, including robots with bodies like salamanders that move with a diagonal gait.

“It really is exciting to imagine that some of these models that we’re cooking up in the lab in these relatively simple robots could have anything to say about something that happened 360 million years ago,” he says, “and to be able to demonstrate that these questions, which seem so simple on first blush, actually require deep insights into the fundamentals of all sorts of disciplines including physics, biology and robotics.”

Image credit: National Science Foundation

Today, the National Robotics Initiative is celebrating 5 years of multi-agency ‘teamwork’ to accelerate the development and use of robots that work beside, or cooperatively, with people. The last 50 years have seen robots advance from mere curiosities to reliable companions.

However, the National Science Foundation have rather ingeniously pointed out something was missing from everyone’s workspace:

Our most advanced robots spend their days sitting quietly and staring at laboratory walls while roboticists figure out the final frontiers of programming, materials development and systems challenges. Which begs the question: Why not throw some robot motivational posters up on those walls?

 

Why not, indeed. Check out the hilarious posters below. You can click the posters to download or visit their website. All images credit National Science Foundation.

Commitment

Roboticists often look to the animal kingdom for inspiration in robot design. Stickybot is a classic example.

About a decade ago, NSF-funded researchers discovered geckos use a phenomenon called directional adhesion to stick to walls. To create a better climbing robot, engineers created an adhesive material that mimics the geckoâ€s foot pads, which are covered with tiny hairs. Stickybot can cling to smooth surfaces with ease thanks to this directional-adhesive material.

Empathy

Not all Disney characters are fantasy. The soft robot Baymax in the animated movie Big Hero is based on real technology funded by NSF.

Robots made from soft materials, such as balloons or fabrics, are excellent assistants for people — especially the elderly, disabled or young. Researchers at the NSF-funded Quality of Life Technology Center are creating soft robot technologies that weigh less and are less likely to injure a person than metal in an unexpected person-to-robot encounter.

Learn

Durable, fast-learning robots that can help with household duties — from clearing the dinner table to sorting laundry by color — would be incredibly welcome family additions. The challenge is creating robots that donâ€t require trained roboticists to program them.

Simon, a robot developed at Georgia Tech by NSF-funded researchers, is one of many robots involved in projects that are redefining how robots and humans interact. For future robots to be more efficient communicators and learners, they need to think like first-time users. So, when Simon says to let him clear your dishes, let him do it.

Power

Nothing is more of a drag than an electrical cord or a heavy battery backpack.

To fly, swim and roam freely, robots need steady sources of power, which means jamming more energy into small spaces. But current energy storage technologies are limited, so researchers are coming up with creative ways to extend robotic operations. For instance, NSF-funded roboticists recently demonstrated that their flying microrobots, nicknamed the RoboBees, can now perch during flight to save energy, as bats, birds or butterflies do.

Independence

If a roboticist shoves a robot, does anyone care? Yes, it turns out everyone does. But what looks like bullying are actually tests to help robots stand up on their own.

Studies of robot balance and locomotion are historically challenging due to stability, power and leg complexities. Even so, robots such as MABEL at the University of Michigan have learned to run quite gracefully, and autonomous machines are increasingly able to navigate even the most treacherous and unpredictable terrain.

Communication

Limitless ink and electrons have been spent in discussing the challenges of person-to-person communication. Imagine the issues inherent in person-to-robot communication.

Natural language processing involves the design and application of algorithms that analyze human language. Such research produces valuable software tools for translation, text mining, question answering, and information extraction.

Doing this could help with certain tasks that people cannot do easily, such as extracting information out of large collections, according to an NSF-funded researcher Carnegie Mellon University. It would also help avoid a future rife with the crushing isolation that comes from your robot friend misinterpreting a nonstandard pronunciation of potato.

Vision

For all computers have done to fulfill our technological vision, computer vision itself remains a major challenge. Computers can record and analyze every pixel of a digital picture, but the accurate identification of objects in a picture or real life is tricky.

NSF-funded engineers at Johns Hopkins University are developing mathematical formulas to help machines discern objects as seemingly simple as chairs. If an object has four legs, does that make it a chair? Or is it a dog? Such confusions can lead to awkwardness, as anyone who has used Facebook’s facial recognition software knows.

Sustainability

If the future means a robot for every use, what happens to those robots when their usefulness comes to an inevitable end?

To avoid landfills brimming with bots, NSF-funded researchers at MIT are developing robots based on the principles of origami that not only fold, walk and swim, but also swiftly degrade when placed in a specific solution. Taking sustainability into account when designing the next generation of robots means making the best use of limited resources.

Strength

For robots, development of both physical gentleness and emotional fortitude are important.

Robots never tire of cuddling or reading the same story 100 times. For this reason and more, robots are on their way to becoming effective and engaging teaching companions. For instance, a robot supported by an NSF Expeditions in Computing award in socially assistive robots was designed to engage children as a peer, not as a teacher. The robot utilized the social, interactive nature of language learning through a storytelling game that could be played together.

Teamwork

Social insects such as bees that collectively and efficiently forage for food, transport large objects, and coordinate nest building often have an advantage over solitary creatures.

Robots that work in unison can have the same advantage. NSF-funded computer scientists and engineers at Harvard University demonstrated this with quarter-sized, bug-like Kilobots that can interact and coordinate their own behavior as a team — a skill that will make it easier for researchers to test collective algorithms on hundreds or even thousands of tiny robots.

Click on these posters to download them and then share them with the hashtag #GenerationR to help motivate the next generation of robots.

Credit: Aaron Bestick, UC Berkeley

The Congressional Robotics Caucus will host an expo on Thursday, June 9 in Washington, D.C. to promote the progress and promise of collaborative robotics (co-robot) research.

The event will mark the five-year anniversary of the National Robotics Initiative, a multi-agency effort among the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to accelerate the development and use of robots that work beside or cooperatively with people and solve problems in areas of national priority.

The National Robotics Initiative advanced research in soft robotics and other novel research areas. In this example, a soft inflatable robot arm from Carnegie Mellon is actuated using cables, motors and pneumatics.
Credit: Sanan/CMU

The event, hosted by Congressional Robotics Caucus Co-Chairs Congressman Rob Woodall and Congressman Mike Doyle, will feature the latest in robotic technologies, as well as a discussion among leading scientists, educators and thought-leaders, and will promote improved public understanding of development of co-robots in the modern world.

All event information can be found on their website.

The panel will feature:

• Moderator Martial Hebert, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
• Lynne Parker, co-chair, NITRD Interagency Working Group on Robotics and Intelligent Systems
• Robert Atkinson, president, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
• Henrik Christensen, Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Georgia Tech University; fellow, IEEE Robotics & Automation Society

The exhibition will feature researchers leading NRI-funded projects and agencies, including:

• Aaron Becker, University of Houston
• Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon University
• Jnaneshwar Das, University of Pennsylvania
• Aaron Ames, Georgia Tech Jessy Grizzle, University of Michigan, and Koushil Sreenath, Carnegie Mellon University
• Satyandra K. Gupta, University of Southern California
• Greg Hager, Johns Hopkins University
• Robert MacCurdy, MIT
• Marcie O’Malley, Rice University
• Josip Markus, Ekso Bionics
• Andrew Williams, Marquette University
• Tyr Wiesner-Hanks, Cornell University
• Cang Ye, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• Department of Energy, Environmental Management
• National Institute of Standards and Technology, Robotic Systems for Smart Manufacturing Program