Abstract
In this paper we demonstrate how to dock two self-reconfigurable robots and as a result merge them into one large robot. The novel feature of our approach is that the configuration we choose for our robots allows the robots to handle misalignment errors and dock simply by pushing against each other. In 90 experiments with the ATRON self-reconfigurable robot we demonstrate that two three-module robots can dock in 16 seconds without using sensors and are successful in between 93% and 40% of the attempts depending on approach angle and offset. While this is a modest step towards fast and reliable docking, we conclude that choosing appropriate configurations for docking is a significant tool for speeding up docking.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bererton, C., Khosla, P.: Toward a team of robots with repair capabilities: a visual docking system. In: Proc. ISER Seventh International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, Berlin, Germany, pp. 333–342 (2000)
Castano, A., Shen, W.-M., Will, P.: Conro: Towards deployable robots with inter-robot metamorphic capabilities. Autonomous Robots 8(3), 309–324 (2000)
Fukuda, T., Nakagawa, S.: Dynamically reconfigurable robotic system. In: Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics & Automation, vol. 3, pp. 1581–1586 (1988)
Groß, R., Bonani, M., Mondada, F., Dorigo, M.: Autonomous self-assembly in a swarm-bot. In: Murase, K., Sekiyama, K., Kubota, N., Naniwa, T., Sitte, J. (eds.) Proc. 3rd Int. Symp. on Autonomous Minirobots for Research and Edutainment, Berlin, Germany, pp. 314–322. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Groß, R., Bonani, M., Mondada, F., Dorigo, M.: Autonomous self-assembly in swarm-bots. IEEE Transactions on Robotics 22(6), 1115–1130 (2006)
Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., Kokaji, S.: Self-assembling machine. In: Proc., IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics & Automation, San Diego, California, USA, pp. 441–448 (1994)
Murata, S., Yoshida, E., Kamimura, A., Kurokawa, H., Tomita, K., Kokaji, S.: M-TRAN: self-reconfigurable modular robotic system. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 7(4), 432–441 (2002)
Murata, S., Kakomura, K., Kurokawa, H.: Docking experiments of a modular robot by visual feedback. In: Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Beijing, China, pp. 625–630 (2006)
Østergaard, E.H., Kassow, K., Beck, R., Lund, H.H.: Design of the atron lattice-based self-reconfigurable robot. Autonomous Robots 21(2), 165–183 (2006)
Payne, K., Everist, J., Hou, F., Shen, W.-M.: Single-sensor probabilistic localization on the seres self-reconfigurable robot. In: Proceedings, 9th International Conference on Intelligent and Autonomous Systems, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 207–216 (2006)
Raper, K.B.: Pseudoplasmodium formation and organization in dictyostelium discoideum. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 56, 241–282 (1940)
Roufas, K., Zhang, Y., Duff, D., Yim, M.: Six degree of freedom sensing for docking using ir red emitters and receivers. In: Rus, D., Singh, S. (eds.) Experimental Robotics VII. Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences, vol. 271, pp. 91–100. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Rubenstein, M., Payne, K., Will, P., Shen, W.-M.: Docking among independent and autonomous conro self-reconfigurable robots. In: Proceedings, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, New Orleans, USA, pp. 2877–2882 (2004)
Rus, D., Vona, M.: A physical implementation of the crystalline robot. In: Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics & Automation, San Francisco, USA, pp. 1726–1733 (2000)
Shen, W.-M., Will, P.: Docking in self-reconfigurable robots. In: Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Maui, Hawaii, USA, vol. 2, pp. 1049–1054 (2001)
Yim, M., Duff, D.G., Roufas, K.D.: Polybot: A modular reconfigurable robot. In: Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics & Automation, San Francisco, CA, USA, pp. 514–520 (2000)
Yim, M., Shirmohammadi, B., Sastra, J., Park, M., Dugan, M., Taylor, C.J.: Towards robotic self-reassembly after explosion. In: Proceedings IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, San Diego, CA, USA, pp. 2767–2772 (2007)
Yim, M., Zhang, Y., Roufas, K., Duff, D., Eldershaw, C.: Connecting and disconnecting for chain self-reconfiguration with polybot. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics 7(4), 442–451 (2002)
Zhang, Y., Roufas, K., Eldershaw, C., Yim, M., Duff, D.: Sensor computation in modular self-reconfigurable robots. In: Siciliano, B., Dario, P. (eds.) Proc. Experimental Robotics VIII. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol. 5. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Zykov, V., Mytilinaios, S., Desnoyer, M., Lipson, H.: Evolved and designed self-reproducing modular robotics. IEEE Transactions on Robotics 23(2), 308–319 (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stoy, K., Christensen, D.J., Brandt, D., Bordignon, M., Schultz, U.P. (2009). Exploit Morphology to Simplify Docking of Self-reconfigurable Robots. In: Asama, H., Kurokawa, H., Ota, J., Sekiyama, K. (eds) Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems 8. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00644-9_39
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00644-9_39
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-00643-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-00644-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)