In the paper “Constraint-Driven Robotic Surfaces, At Human-Scale“, Scott Hudson’s team designed and implemented a robotic wall that can move into different shapes with different use cases. This project tackles several technical challenges through digital fabrication. Their first contribution was to design a technique for the surface’s movement using a constraint-based system. Previous work such as the pin display have been limited to two and a half dimensional movement, small areas, and lightweight object manipulation. Their system manipulates the stiffness of the robot by moving the powerful actuators to the edges of the structure with only lightweight actuators at the joints. This constrains the movements but also allows for increased scalability.
Another contribution was the bendable column structure of the surface as well as a fabrication technique that could be mass-produced. The structure itself consists of multiple independent columns where each of the cells have three basic states. Because they prioritized mass-manufacturability, they used planar fabrication processes (which are highly scalable) and common materials to create each of the cells. The movement of the surface is primarily run by control system that modifies the velocity of the servo motors and angular position of the endpoint cells; to change shapes, the structure simple has to configure a column and then squeeze the endpoints together. The team ran several tests to determine the lightweight robotic material’s ability to withstand human-scale forces.
They also explored how the robotic surface might implement interactivity. They propose using sensors that can detect human interaction with the surface which can then tell the surface to change shape. Another idea expressed in the paper that I found quite interesting was that this robotic surface was both material and machine. This idea connects to Hudson’s talk and its theme of the future possibilities within Human-Computer Interaction. It’s clear that his research focuses on exploring these possibilities and this paper in particular seems like a interesting baseline for further work in the area. As he pointed out with Moore’s Law, it seems like we are just at the beginning of exploring ubiquitous technology in our lives, and it’s important to continue researching and imagining these possibilities to make them come true.