Unusual Appendages: Novel, multi-modal, or multi-functional uses for limbs, tails, and other body parts RSS 2018 Workshop Friday, June 29th, 2018 Aaron M. Johnson, Amir Patel, and Tom Libby Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Senior Lecturer of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa Postdoctoral Fellow in Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Overview

Mobile robots locomote by pushing on the environment with appendages: legs and wheels on ground, wings or propellers in the air, etc. Intuitively, appendages are generally optimized for the chosen modality. By contrast, animal appendages are diverse and incredibly versatile, enabling multi-modal utility across many tasks. Robots can also benefit from more creative use of appendages: swinging tails that generate inertial forces, walking on wings, swimming with legs, and more. This workshop will broaden our understanding of appendages by exploring their design for novel, multi-modal or multi-functional interactions with the environment or inertial forces. We will explore diverse appendages in animals and robots including tails, wheels, legs, arms, gyros, tracks, and more. What modalities can be harnessed to aid locomotion, and how is morphology shaped by task performance? Robots are not constrained by evolutionary history, so their appendages should be even more diverse than those found in nature. What new appendages can we imagine that add functionality, agility or robustness? The format will consist of a number of invited and contributed presentations from biologists and roboticists on cutting edge research in the field, as well as an open discussion prompted by the questions listed below. The workshop will also accept submissions from non-invited speakers for consideration.

Format

This workshop falls under the "Mechanisms and Design" special theme for RSS 2018. The organizers will assign a chair to each session who will be responsible for reading in advance the material to be presented. In addition to moderating questions from the workshop participants, the chair will raise specific questions prepared in advance of each speaker after their talk. Beyond these question periods between speakers, a dedicated discussion session in the afternoon will provide a venue to summarize the conclusions of the day's proceedings and consider the future and potential of this line of research. A few discussion questions will be sent to the presenters and listed on the workshop website in advance so that participants can have time to prepare and consider their answers. Presenters will also be encouraged to touch on the following set of overarching topics in their talks:

• What kinds of appendages exist in animals and robots and how are they used?
• What modalities can appendages engage, and how does multimodality increase robustness and agility?
• What new capabilities or behaviors arise when adding an appendage to a robot?
• What are the relative merits of specialized appendages and multifunctional appendages?
• How are the constraints and compromises of multifunctionality negotiated through design?

After the workshop, we hope to have a journal special issue for which the speakers at the workshop will be invited. This special issue, as with the workshop, will aim to bring together the many varied approaches being explored for understanding the design and multi-modal use of appendages.

Schedule

Schedule of events for Friday, June 29th, 2018 (presenting author marked with a *):

Invited Speakers

• Pinhas Ben-Tzvi - Virginia Tech
• Howie Choset - Carnegie Mellon University
• Jonathan Clark - Florida A&M University
• Avik De - University of Pennsylvania
• Ronald Fearing - University of California, Berkeley
• Ardian Jusufi - Max Plank Institute
• Chen Li - Johns Hopkins University
• Zachary Manchester - Stanford
• Amir Patel - University of Cape Town
• Jim Schmiedeler - Notre Dame

Contributed Speakers

Submission of 1-page extended abstracts is now closed.

• Qiyuan Fu - Johns Hopkins University
• Ratan Othayoth - Johns Hopkins University
• Joseph Norby - Carnegie Mellon University
• Richard Parker - Scion - NZ Forest Research Institute

Links

• RSS Conference
• Robotic Uses for Tails - RSS 2015 Workshop
• Throwing Your Weight Around: Using Appendage Inertia - CLAWAR 2012 Special Session