Inside a lab in Boston College’s Faculty of Engineering, a robotic arm drops small, plastic objects right into a field positioned completely on the ground to catch them as they fall. One after the other, these tiny constructions — feather-light, cylindrical items, no greater than an inch tall — fill the field. Some are purple, others blue, purple, inexperienced, or black.
Every object is the results of an experiment in robotic autonomy. By itself, studying because it goes, the robotic is looking for, and attempting to make, an object with probably the most environment friendly energy-absorbing form to ever exist.
To do that, the robotic creates a small plastic construction with a 3D printer, data its form and dimension, strikes it to a flat metallic floor — after which crushes it with a strain equal to an grownup Arabian horse standing on 1 / 4. The robotic then measures how a lot vitality the construction absorbed, how its form modified after being squashed, and data each element in an enormous database. Then, it drops the crushed object into the field and wipes the metallic plate clear, able to print and take a look at the following piece. Will probably be ever-so-slightly completely different from its predecessor, its design and dimensions tweaked by the robotic’s laptop algorithm primarily based on all previous experiments — the idea of what is known as Bayesian optimization. Experiment after experiment, the 3D constructions get higher at absorbing the influence of getting crushed.
These experiments are potential due to the work of Keith Brown, an ENG affiliate professor of mechanical engineering, and his crew within the KABlab. The robotic, named MAMA BEAR — brief for its prolonged full title, Mechanics of Additively Manufactured Architectures Bayesian Experimental Autonomous Researcher — has developed because it was first conceptualized by Brown and his lab in 2018. By 2021, the lab had set the machine on its quest to make a form that absorbs probably the most vitality, a property generally known as its mechanical vitality absorption effectivity. This present iteration has run constantly for over three years, filling dozens of bins with greater than 25,000 3D-printed constructions.
Why so many shapes? There are numerous makes use of for one thing that may effectively soak up vitality — say, cushioning for delicate electronics being shipped internationally or for knee pads and wrist guards for athletes. “You might draw from this library of information to make higher bumpers in a automobile, or packaging tools, for instance,” Brown says.
To work ideally, the constructions need to strike the proper stability: they cannot be so sturdy that they trigger injury to no matter they’re supposed to guard, however ought to be sturdy sufficient to soak up influence. Earlier than MAMA BEAR, the perfect construction anybody ever noticed was about 71 % environment friendly at absorbing vitality, says Brown. However on a cold January afternoon in 2023, Brown’s lab watched their robotic hit 75 % effectivity, breaking the recognized document. The outcomes have simply been revealed in Nature Communications.
“Once we began out, we did not know if there was going to be this record-breaking form,” says Kelsey Snapp (ENG’25), a PhD scholar in Brown’s lab who oversees MAMA BEAR. “Slowly however absolutely we stored inching up, and broke by means of.”
The record-breaking construction appears like nothing the researchers would have anticipated: it has 4 factors, formed like skinny flower petals, and is taller and narrower than the early designs.
“We’re excited that there is a lot mechanical knowledge right here, that we’re utilizing this to study classes about design extra typically,” Brown says.
Their intensive knowledge is already getting its first real-life utility, serving to to tell the design of latest helmet padding for US Military troopers. Brown, Snapp, and venture collaborator Emily Whiting, a BU Faculty of Arts & Sciences affiliate professor of laptop science, labored with the US Military and went by means of discipline testing to make sure helmets utilizing their patent-pending padding are comfy and supply ample safety from influence. The 3D construction used for the padding is completely different from the record-breaking piece — with a softer heart and shorter stature to assist with consolation.
MAMA BEAR shouldn’t be Brown’s solely autonomous analysis robotic. His lab has different “BEAR” robots performing completely different duties — just like the nano BEAR, which research the way in which supplies behave on the molecular scale utilizing a expertise known as atomic power microscopy. Brown has additionally been working with Jörg Werner, an ENG assistant professor of mechanical engineering, to develop one other system, generally known as the PANDA — brief for Polymer Evaluation and Discovery Array — BEAR to check hundreds of skinny polymer supplies to seek out one which works greatest in a battery.
“They’re all robots that do analysis,” Brown says. “The philosophy is that they are utilizing machine studying along with automation to assist us do analysis a lot sooner.”
“Not simply sooner,” provides Snapp. “You are able to do belongings you could not usually do. We will attain a construction or purpose that we would not have been capable of obtain in any other case, as a result of it will have been too costly and time-consuming.” He has labored intently with MAMA BEAR for the reason that experiments started in 2021, and gave the robotic its skill to see — generally known as machine imaginative and prescient — and clear its personal take a look at plate.
The KABlab is hoping to additional display the significance of autonomous analysis. Brown desires to maintain collaborating with scientists in varied fields who want to check extremely massive numbers of constructions and options. Regardless that they already broke a document, “we’ve no skill to know if we have reached the utmost effectivity,” Brown says, that means they may probably break it once more. So, MAMA BEAR will carry on operating, pushing boundaries additional, whereas Brown and his crew see what different purposes the database might be helpful for. They’re additionally exploring how the greater than 25,000 crushed items might be unwound and reloaded into the 3D printers so the fabric might be recycled for extra experiments.
“We will hold finding out this technique, as a result of mechanical effectivity, like so many different materials properties, is simply precisely measured by experiment,” Brown says, “and utilizing self-driving labs helps us decide the perfect experiments and carry out them as quick as potential.”
