RATCHAIR

Ratchair is a novel paradigm for controlled motion (and rotation) of everyday objects without the need of a traction mechanism and steering wheels. It is inspired by the RanBots principle: it works by attaching small vibration motors to the object that introduce controlled “noise” in every degree of freedom of the mechanical system. The modules have inertial sensors and communicate wirelessly so as to find the correct sequence of vibration patterns that makes the pose evolve as desired.

Why Rat-Chair? Because the displacement/rotation is the consequence of a microscopic ratchet-like interaction with the floor surface. Either reinforcement learning or brute force + PCA can be used to find the best patterns (those who resonates with the object mechanical structure, and at the same time “align” with the microscopic floor structure in the right direction, so as to maximize the displacement/rotation produced by the ratchet phenomena). 

This strategy, while not suited (yet?) for vehicles, makes possible several interesting application scenarios (e.g., assisted displacement of heavy objects with little effort on the part of the human (a sort of non-isotropic acoustic lubrication); self-arranging furniture helping organize and clean spaces such as classrooms and restaurants during vacant hours).

Embedding vibration modules as part of mass-produced objects may provide a low-cost way to make almost anything mobile. The principle is agnostic with respect to the shape of the object, number, type, or relative position of the actuators.

Papers

Mass media:

Demonstrations

Share: