Robot pebbles: One centimeter modules for programmable matter through self-disassembly

Abstract

Abstract-This paper describes the design, fabrication, and experimental results of a programmable matter system capable of 2D shape formation through subtraction. The system is composed of autonomous 1cm modules which use customdesigned electropermanent magnets to bond, communicate, and share power with their neighbors. Given an initial block composed of many of these modules latched together in a regular crystalline structure, our system is able to form shapes by detaching the unnecessary modules. Many experiments show that the modules in our system are able to distribute data at 9600bps to their neighbors with a 98.5% success rate after four retries, and the connectors are able to support over 85 times the weight of a single module.

Self-healing and self-repairing technologies

“…The concept of robotic sand [165] or robotic pebbles [152] takes the idea of self-reconfiguration to the extreme by miniaturising the robotic modules. They connect to their peers through electromagnets and are able to take any desired body form through self-disassembly and re-assembly.…”

“…The focus is on problem diagnosis and reconfiguration of power systems on a typical surface 13 http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN NEWS& ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=27445 Homogeneous redundancy with self-reconfiguration L6 [41,144] Systems have been demonstrated to function in real-world environments, but due to the frequent lack of concrete application case, many systems have not been assigned an end user environment yet Coordination mechanisms L3 [145][146][147] Observed in the lab Air-borne homogeneous self-reconfiguration L2 [148] The real state of the project remains undisclosed, but it is assumed that a functioning demonstrator will be announced as soon as it exists Autonomous replacement of heterogeneous modules L3 [149][150][151][152] Observed in the lab Trophallaxis (sharing energy) L3 [146] Observed in the lab Adaptive self-modelling and failure compensation L3 [26,153] Observed in the lab combatant ship for service restoration. Faulty components are quickly isolated and alternative power supply arranged.…”

Making self-disassembling objects with multiple components in the Robot Pebbles system

“…The work presented here builds on our previous work in [1], [20] on the Robot Pebbles hardware and algorithms. There are unique hardware challenges associated with the Pebbles, but the work presented here shows how algorithms can be designed to overcome these challenges to use self-disassembly as a process to create multiple, interlocking objects from a single block of raw material.…”

“…The algorithms in this paper use the Robot Pebbles system described in great detail in our ICRA 2010 paper [1]. The most important aspect of each module is that it must be able to autonomously communicate and bond with its immediate neighbors.…”

“…In our system, shapes are formed by deconstructing an initial block of material to eliminate unnecessary pieces. We call this approach selfdisassembly or subtraction [1]. In the same way a sculptor removes the extra stone from a block of marble to reveal a statue, our system subtracts modules to form the goal structure.…”