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Applied Physics Seminar, "From slithering, to swimming, to walking - a journey of geometric mechanics"

Shai Revzen, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering and Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
12:00-1:00 PM
Off Campus Location
Abstract: There is hardly a domain where symmetry simplifies the physics more intuitively than in the geometric mechanics developed in the 1990's. These demonstrated how quotienting by a symmetry group, e.g. body frame motions, leads to a "reconstruction equation" that teases apart the influence of group symmetric constraints and group momentum. When applied to proprioceptively controlled movement in animals, or equivalently, high-gain feedback in robots, the reconstruction equation provides a simple and compact representation of the physics of locomotion. Here we present recent results, wherein we applied these insights to produce a fast and sample-efficient data-driven method for modeling the motion of animals and robots. We show the application of our method to Stokes fluid swimming, demonstrate its extension to finite but low Reynolds numbers, apply it to a broad class of compliant mechanisms, and show its surprising relevance to multi-legged systems whose multi-contact mechanics are very difficult to model.
Building: Off Campus Location
Location: Virtual
Event Type: Lecture / Discussion
Tags: Engineering, Physics, Science
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Applied Physics