Design and Implementation of a Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robot

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of a new modular self-reconfigurable robot. The single module has three joints and can perform rectilinear motion, lateral shift, lateral rolling, and rotation. A flexible pin-hole-based docking mechanism is designed for self-assembly. With the proposed infrared-sensor-based docking method, multiple modules can be self-assembled to form versatile configurations. The modules communicate with each other through ZigBee protocols. The locomotion planning and geometry analysis of the single module are presented in detail and the efficiency of the single module's mobility is also demonstrated by experimental results. In automatic docking experiments with two modules, the proposed method is shown to be able to achieve an average success rate of 78% within the effective region. The average time of the docking process is reduced to 75 s. The maximum velocity of the I-shaped robot is up to 3.6 cm/s and the maximum velocity of the X-shaped robot is 4.8 cm/s. The detach-dock method for I-to-X transformation planning is also verified. The ZigBee-based communication system can achieve 100% receiving rate at 55 ms transformation interval.

Toward Growing Robots: A Historical Evolution from Cellular to Plant-Inspired Robotics

“…When a block is not aligned with a goal position, the module actuator will use high torque leading to a random movement; instead, if the module is aligned with the goal position, torque is used, leading to a controlled rotation toward the goal. Qiao et al (2014) show how a mobile module docks itself to a module fixed at a defined position. Wei et al (2011) present another good example of cell inspired growing robot (Sambot), although it probably lies on the boundary between swarm robot and a selfassembling mobile robot.…”

“…Reprinted, with permission, from Davey et al, 2012 ); (H) two modules of M-Blocks (© [2018] IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Romanishin et al, 2013 ); (I) a single module of the modular self-reconfigurable robot presented in Qiao et al ( 2014 ) (Reprinted with permission from License Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)); (J) Roombots: two clusters composed of two modules connected to a grid during assembly (© [2018] IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Spröwitz et al, 2010 ).…”

“…When a block is not aligned with a goal position, the module actuator will use high torque leading to a random movement; instead, if the module is aligned with the goal position, torque is used, leading to a controlled rotation toward the goal. Qiao et al ( 2014 ) show how a mobile module docks itself to a module fixed at a defined position.…”

Nested Reconfigurable Robots: Theory, Design, and Realization

“…A nested reconfigurable robotic system can be defined as a set of modular robots with individual reconfiguration characteristics (intra-reconfigurability) that combine with other homogeneous/heterogeneous robot modules (inter-reconfigurability). However, the objective of this system is to generate more complex morphologies for performing specific tasks that are far from the capabilities of a single unit or to respond to programmable assembly requirements [19, 20]. The two-level reconfiguration process in a nested reconfigurable robotic system implies several technical challenges in hardware design, planning algorithms, and control strategies.…”

Modular and Self-Scalable Origami Robot: A First Approach

“…The module component includes two useful properties for the design of an MRS, these are: class and architecture. The class refers to the different ways in which modularity can be achieved, such as fixed-configuration, manually-reconfigurable [2,4], self-reconfigurable [5,6], and self-replicable [7]. On the other hand, architecture is the hardware categories of configuration: Chain [4,5], Lattice [6,8,9], Mobile [10][11][12], Hybrid [13,14], Truss [15][16][17], and Free form [18,19].…”