Skip to yearly menu bar Skip to main content


Oral

DiffuseBot: Breeding Soft Robots With Physics-Augmented Generative Diffusion Models

Tsun-Hsuan Johnson Wang · Juntian Zheng · Pingchuan Ma · Yilun Du · Byungchul Kim · Andrew Spielberg · Josh Tenenbaum · Chuang Gan · Daniela Rus

Room R06-R09 (level 2)

Abstract:

Nature evolves creatures with a high complexity of morphological and behavioral intelligence, meanwhile computational methods lag in approaching that diversity and efficacy. Co-optimization of artificial creatures' morphology and control in silico shows promise for applications in physical soft robotics and virtual character creation; such approaches, however, require developing new learning algorithms that can reason about function atop pure structure. In this paper, we present DiffuseBot, a physics-augmented diffusion model that generates soft robot morphologies capable of excelling in a wide spectrum of tasks. \name bridges the gap between virtually generated content and physical utility by (i) augmenting the diffusion process with a physical dynamical simulation which provides a certificate of performance, and (ii) introducing a co-design procedure that jointly optimizes physical design and control by leveraging information about physical sensitivities from differentiable simulation. We showcase a range of simulated and fabricated robots along with their capabilities. Check our website: https://diffusebot.github.io/

Chat is not available.