I am currently a PhD student at Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes (LS2N). I work in the Robotique et Vivant team, and my supervisors are Philippe Wenger and Christine Chevallereau. The topic of my thesis is:

Theoretical and experimental study of innovative robot architectures inspired by the neck of birds : design and control.

The beak of birds is equivalent to the hand of humans. Therefore, the functional equivalent of the human arm is the neck of birds. The latter has interesting properties depending on the species: for example, the woodpecker uses it to propel its beak at high speed to hit tree trunks and the eagle can turn its head 360 degrees.

We are inspired by the neck structure of birds to design innovative robots. These robots are stacks of modules (one module corresponds to one vertebra of the neck) that are very light, since they are made of bars and springs only. The stack of modules is operated by cables, which transmit the forces from the motors (located at the base of the robot) to the modules. Since the motors are located at the base of the stack, the stack is very light and therefore requires little energy to move.

We work with biologists from the Muséum d'Histoires Naturelles de Paris to better understand the structure of the neck and how it functions.

Simulation:

This video was recorded with Working Model 2D. The manipulator is a stack of 9 mechanisms. The bars are in blue, the springs in green and the actuators in red. Starting from its equilibrium position at rest, the neck is tightened (five seconds), stays tight (one second), and returns to its equilibrium position at rest (five seconds).




This second video was produced with Matlab / Simscape Multibody. Only the bars are represented but the springs and motors are well taken into account in the simulation. This time, the realized trajectory was captured on a video of a green woodpecker neck. The orientations of the modules have been optimized for each frame of the neck video, leading to this reproduction in simulation.

Prototype with 3 modules:

Our prototype consists of three modules and is powered by four motors. Thus, one of the cables runs along the entire length of the manipulator to the left of each of the modules, allowing the associated motor to pull all three modules at the same time. The other three cables are positioned to the right of the other modules (one cable per module), allowing the torque applied to each of the modules to be adjusted. The passage of these cables to the associated motor is along the diagonal bars on the lower modules, which limits their effect on these modules.



Our next prototype will consist of ten modules powered by four motors.

E-Mail : Benjamin.Fasquelle@ls2n.fr
Phone : (+33)6 67 41 50 60