D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline robots: Self-reconfiguration with unit-compressible modules. Autonomous Robots, 10(1):107--24, 2001.  Home/Search   Document Not in Database   Summary   Related Articles   Check

....at the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (MEL) in Japan, as well as at Johns Hopkins University and Xerox PARC; the sophistication of the devices has increased ever since. Meanwhile, several groups have contributed groundbreaking ideas, such as the expansion contraction actuation mechanism of [6], the connection mechanism of [3] and the deformation based actuation of [4] A good overview of the state of the field is presented in [5] Most proposed unit reconfigurable robot systems are actuated by rotating a module relative to the rest of the robot or expanding and or contracting a ....

....are based on the unitmodular approach. Our own work has focused on the principle of mechanical simplicity, or the simplest design with the fewest components to accomplish the job. We ve also characterized the properties that would confer a unitmodular robot system with self reconfiguration [6]. Guided by these results, we ve developed two unitmodular systems: the Molecule robot and the Crystal robot. The main goal of the former is self reconfiguration in 3D. The latter uses a novel actuation mechanism, called scaling, that allows an individual module to double in size by expanding or ....

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Rus, D. and Vona, M. Crystalline robots: Self-reconfiguration with unitcompressible modules. Autonom. Robo. 10, 1 (Jan. 2001), 107--124.

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D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline robots: Self-reconfiguration with unit-compressible modules. Autonomous Robots, 10(1):107--24, 2001.

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D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline robots: Self-reconfiguration with unitcompressible modules. Autonomous Robots, 10(1):107--24, 2001.

....from one shape to another to best match the shape of the terrain in a statically stable gait, as illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 1. This figure demonstrates using shape metamorphosis for locomotion. A statically stable gait is used to translate the robot from left to right. In our previous work [7, 5, 17, 18, 19] we describe two di#erent robot systems capable of self reconfiguration: the Robotic Molecule system and the Robotic Crystal system. In this paper we examine using self reconfiguration for locomotion an we describe our experimental results in simulation and on the hardware units we built in our ....

....to climb over the obstacle. Theorem 1 Suppose a self reconfiguring robot has to travel from an initial Each system implements this operation in a di#erent way, using its own specific actuation capabilities. We have shown these capabilities for Molecule robots in [7] and for Atoms in [19]. The Experiments section details how the two systems accomplish such motions. location S to a goal location G in an unknown environment with piecewiseplanar segments. The greedy algorithm in Figure 7 is complete and takes O(1) time to compute a path to the goal, provided each segment is wide ....

D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline Robots: Self-reconfiguration with Unitcompressible Modules. Autonomous Robots Vol. 10, no. 1, pp 107--124, 2001.

....These robots are massively parallel distributed systems, with each module thinking for itself within the group context. Previous work in self reconfiguring robots has concentrated on designing, engineering, and controlling particular systems. Several interesting robot designs have been proposed [2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15]. For each of these systems, architecture dependent algorithms that couple planning to the specific actuation have been proposed. This includes real breakthroughs in both centralized planning [4, 16] and decentralized planning [6, 7, 12] This body of work has brought valuable insight into ....

.... capability of the type required by the algorithms presented here (motion in a unit lattice over the surface, convex and concave transitions) For the Molecule, a structure called a tile has been developed with this property [5] while the grain meta module was developed for the Crystalline Atom [10]. These meta modules can then immediately use the rules of the automata, although communication between the individual modules would be necessary to determine the meta module s neighbors and coordinate its actuation. The use of meta modules requires many more modules to achieve the same amount of ....

D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline robots: Selfreconfiguration with unit-compressible modules. Autonomous Robots, 10(1):107--24, 2001.

....can be subsequently input to other applications as described below. 4 Application In developing the 3D MBP algorithm we have been motivated by self repair planning in modular selfreconfigurable systems. Self reconfigurable robots are robots that can change shape to better accomplish a given task [3, 4, 11, 12, 15, 17]. One interesting property of these systems is that they can self repair that is, if a module fails, the rest of the modules collaborate to eject the bad module and replace its functionality. Most modular self reconfiguring systems [11, 4, 15] are grid based so that modules can travel only ....

....shape to better accomplish a given task [3, 4, 11, 12, 15, 17] One interesting property of these systems is that they can self repair that is, if a module fails, the rest of the modules collaborate to eject the bad module and replace its functionality. Most modular self reconfiguring systems [11, 4, 15] are grid based so that modules can travel only along rectilinear paths. Translations are easier than changing the direction of movement, therefore we would like to use 3D MBP to generate good plans for these robots. In this section, we describe the application of 3D MBP to 5 Figure 5: 3D MBP ....

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D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline Robots: Selfreconfiguration with Unit-compressible Modules. Autonomous Robots, 10(1), pp. 107-124, 2001.

....Science Technology Hanover, NH, USA Tsukuba, Japan Introduction The key research questions in self reconfiguring robotics are how to design and engineer robot systems capable of self reconfiguration, and how to plan for such systems. Several interesting robot designs have been proposed [RV01, KR99, MKY 98, TMK 99, FK90, PCSC96, YDR00, SWC99, UK00] For each of these systems, architecture dependent algorithms that couple planning to the specific actuation have been proposed. This includes real breakthroughs in both centralized planning [KR99, YMK 00] and decentralized ....

....to determine the meta module s neighbors and coordinate its actuation. Also, the use of meta modules requires many more modules to achieve the same amount of reconfigurability. In the future we also hope to instantiate at least one set of rules onto the Molecule [KR99] and Crystalline Atom [RV01] each of which have their own unique actuation properties, either directly or through the use of meta modules. ....

D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline robots: Self-reconfiguration with unit-compressible modules. Autonomous Robots, 10(1):107--24, 2001.

....actuating modules. A self reconfiguring robot could, for example, form into a legged robot for rapid locomotion, then reform into a snake to navigate a tunnel, while using some of its modules to form a gripper to manipulate an object. Several self reconfigurable systems have been proposed [1, 4, 6, 2, 9, 11, 5]. In all these systems, the actuation is distributed. However, if the control is centralized, the overall e#ciency of the system may be quite low. We seek to enable decentralized approaches to path planning and actuation for self reconfigurable systems. These algorithms lead to more e#cient ....

....a central controller for systems with large numbers of modules. 2 The Crystalline Atomic robot The distributed algorithms described in this paper are applicable to robots with unit compressible modules. One specific instantiation is the Crystalline Atomic robot, or crystal, developed in our lab [9]. It is made up of a collection of Atoms, which are square modules that can connect to each other and can expand and contract by a factor of two. One atom is shown in Fig. 2. In this system, a single module cannot move on its own. The expansion and contraction of neighboring modules will cause it ....

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D. Rus and M. Vona. Crystalline robots: Selfreconfiguration with unit-compressible modules. Autonomous Robots, 10(1):107--24, 2001.

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