No abstract

Abstract-Chain modular robots form systems with many degrees of freedom which are capable of being reconfigured to form arbitrary chain-based topologies. This reconfiguration requires the detaching of modules from one point in the system and re-attaching at another. The internal errors in the system (especially with large numbers of modules) are such that accurate movement of chain ends, required for the attaching of modules, can be extremely difficult. A three phase docking process is described that utilizes both openand closed-loop techniques.This process has been shown to work with an early version. Issues raised during this testing have been addressed in a later version. Discussion of these issues, their solutions and preliminary results of the testing the latest version are given.

Modular, self-reconfigurable robots show the promise of great versatility, robustness and low cost. However, programming such robots for specific tasks, with hundreds of modules and each of which with multiple actuators and sensors, can be tedious and error-prone. The extreme versatility of the modular systems requires a new paradigm in programming. In this paper, we present new software architecture for this type of robot, in particular PolyBot, which has been developed through its third generation. The architecture, based on the properties of the PolyBot electro-mechanical design, features a multi-master/multislave structure in a multi-threaded environment, with three layers of communication protocols. The architecture is currently being implemented for Motorola PowerPC using vxWorks.

No abstract

No abstract