Rapid Co-design of Task-Specialized Whegged Robots for Ad-Hoc Needs

Abstract--In this work, we investigate the use of co-design methods to iterate upon robot designs in the field, performing time sensitive, ad-hoc tasks. Tested in four terrains, we show that robots optimized in simulation exhibit strong sim-to-real transfer and are nearly twice as efficient as the nominal platform when tested in hardware. The era of industrial automation yielded the world's first productive robots. These task-optimized robots were designed for pre-conceived, repetitive functions. Only recently have we seen robots leave the factory, mastering unstructured terrains.