ReactiveBuild: Environment-Adaptive Self-Assembly of Amorphous Structures

Swissler, Petras; Rubenstein, Michael

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-92790-5_28

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…A group of self-assembling robots does not need to rely on the availability of external materials, but at the cost of requiring a larger number of autonomous robots. A force-aware self-assembly algorithm for structures such as cantilevers is developed in [23] in which agents place as soon as they reach a position near a link that is close to failure. The work we present in this paper considers the selfassembly of cantilevers similar to this, but here we enable multiple robots to build on the structure concurrently, and also allow robots to explore more of the structure than just the first link that is close to failure.…”

Section: A Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributed Self-Assembly of Cantilevers by Force-Aware Robots

Bray

Groß

2021

2021 International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems (MRS)

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Inspired by how ants construct bridges out of their bodies, this paper investigates how a swarm of autonomous robotic agents could self-assemble into cantilevers as a first step towards constructing bridges. Two distributed self-assembly algorithms are presented that consider local force information to ensure links between agents do not break: one in which agents move one at a time, and another where multiple agents move simultaneously. The algorithms are tested in simulation for a variety of allowable link strengths, and are verified to be able to construct cantilevers of a near-optimum length. A slight decrease in cantilever length is observed when multiple agents move concurrently, but construction is completed significantly faster. Prototype hardware to measure the forces in links between real agents is also presented, demonstrating how the concept could be applied to the real world.

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Section: A Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributed Self-Assembly of Cantilevers by Force-Aware Robots

Bray

Groß

2021

2021 International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems (MRS)

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“…In the second way, robots construct structures using external materials other than themselves [9][10][11]. In the third way, robots construct structures using their own bodies, that is, robots selfassemble structures to overcome the obstacles, such as ramps to pass over a step [12], and bridges to span a gap (e.g., bridges self-assembled from both directions [13]). In this study, we focus on self-assembled swarm-robot bridges to…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of self-disassembly of bridges on collective flow characteristics of swarm robots in a single-lane and periodic system with a gap

Ito¹,

Nishi²

2023

Preprint

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Inspired by the living bridges formed by ants, swarm robots have been developed to self-assemble bridges to span gaps and self-disassemble them. Self-disassembly of bridges may increase the transport efficiency of swarm robots by increasing the number of moving robots, and also may decrease the efficiency by causing gaps to reappear. Our aim is to elucidate the influence of self-disassembly of bridges on the collective flow characteristics of swarm robots in a single-lane and periodic system with a gap. In the system, robots span and cross the gap by self-assembling a single-layer bridge. We consider two scenarios in which self-disassembling bridges is prevented (prevent-scenario) or allowed (allow-scenario). We represent the horizontal movement of robots with a typical car-following model, and simply model the actions of robots for self-assembling and self-disassembling bridges. Numerical simulations have revealed the following results. Flow-density diagrams in both the scenarios shift to the higher-density region as the gap length increases. When density is low, allow-scenario exhibits the steady state of repeated self-assembly and self-disassembly of bridges. If density is extremely low, flow in this state is greater than flow in prevent-scenario owing to the increase in the number of robots moving horizontally. Otherwise, flow in this state is smaller than flow in prevent-scenario. Besides, flow in this state increases monotonically with respect to the velocity of robots in joining and leaving bridges. Thus, self-disassembling bridges is recommended for only extremely low-density conditions in periodic systems. This study contributes to the development of the collective dynamics of self-driven particles that self-assemble structures, and stirs the dynamics with other self-assembled structures, such as ramps, chains, and towers.

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“…These works design custom truss members in parallel with the robots so that they can be effectively manipulated, but these specialist materials must also be transported to the building site. An alternative is to use the robots themselves as the building material, as explored in [3,20]: this requires a greater number of robots, but the building material can transport itself to the construction site. However, [3] only addresses construction of cantilevers, without considering what should happen when the other side of the void is reached.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Self-assembly of complete bridges is shown in [20], but this approach requires building from both sides of the gap. Neither work considers how the structure can be safely deconstructed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An intuitive way for a team of robots to build useful structures is for a human to design the desired structure, and tell each agent exactly what they are to build [23]. Another approach is to give high-level goals, such as to span a certain distance without breaking [3,11,12,13,20]. This can be applied to a wider range of building scenarios than the preplanned approach, and the distributed algorithms increase the scalability of the system while removing the single point of failure of a global controller.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Distributed Optimisation and Deconstruction of Bridges by Self-Assembling Robots

Bray¹,

Groß²

2022

Robotics: Science and Systems XVIII

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Multi-robot systems are often made of physically small robots, meaning obstacles that could be overcome by larger robots pose a greater challenge to them. This paper considers how a group of such robots could self-assemble into bridges to cross large gaps in their environment. We build on previous work demonstrating construction of cantilevers to show how they can be modified once the other side of the gap is reached. Two distributed algorithms are presented: one to reduce the number of agents in the initial structure once it is supported at both ends, and another to deconstruct this leaner structure when it is no longer required. A force-aware approach is taken to ensure that structures do not collapse under self-weight. The first algorithm is shown to be capable of reducing the number of agents in the structure to close to the optimum amount, whereas the second achieves safe and reliable deconstruction.

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ReactiveBuild: Environment-Adaptive Self-Assembly of Amorphous Structures

Cited by 5 publications

References 20 publications

Distributed Self-Assembly of Cantilevers by Force-Aware Robots

Distributed Self-Assembly of Cantilevers by Force-Aware Robots

Influence of self-disassembly of bridges on collective flow characteristics of swarm robots in a single-lane and periodic system with a gap

Distributed Optimisation and Deconstruction of Bridges by Self-Assembling Robots

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