Toward complete area coverage of a reconfigurable tiling robot by following obstacle shape

Abstract

Complete area coverage is a crucial factor for a floor cleaning robot. Self-reconfigurable tiling robots have been introduced over robots with a fixed shape for floor cleaning since they improve the area coverage by the flexibility of shape-shifting in cluttered environments. The existing coverage methods of reconfigurable tiling robots follow the tiling theory to cope with the area coverage problem. However, these methods merely consider a limited set of predefined shapes for the reconfiguration of a robot. The consideration of a limited set of predefined shapes for the reconfiguration impedes the ability of coverage to a certain extent in typical floor environments. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel method to improve area coverage of a tiling robot by reconfiguring according to the shape of obstacles. To this end, the required hinge angles for reconfiguring per the shape of an obstacle are determined by a genetic algorithm. The proposed method considers an optimized shape for reconfiguration in lieu of a limited set of predefined shapes. The coverage improvement of the proposed concept has been compared against the existing coverage methods of tiling robots to validate the performance. According to the experimental results, the proposed method surpasses the existing coverage methods of tiling robots from the perspective of area coverage, and the improvement is significant and noteworthy.

Modelling and Control of a Reconfigurable Robot for Achieving Reconfiguration and Locomotion with Different Shapes

“…In contrast, the implementation cost of the robot would be high compared to the previous version of hTetro, which considered only seven discrete shapes for the reconfiguration (e.g., [ 25 , 26 ]). Nevertheless, the simulation outcomes of the work [ 28 , 29 , 30 ] have proven that the ability of hTetro to reconfigure and locomote with any shape can significantly improve the area coverage performance. The main intention of deploying the reconfigurable robots for floor cleaning is to realize complete area coverage performance.…”

“…In the present stage of the work, it was assumed that the robot would have to locomote only shorter distances with shapes other than the primary four shapes. For example, the high-level autonomy strategies proposed in [ 28 , 29 , 30 ] expect the robot to travel 25 cm after reconfiguring into a shape to cover an obstacle. Therefore, the interruptions during the locomotion would not cause much overhead for the robot.…”

“…Although the above-mentioned robots are reconfigurable, the reconfiguration is limited to a small set of predefined shapes (e.g., hTetrakis: three shapes [ 21 ], hTetro: seven shapes [ 19 , 25 , 26 ], hHoneycomb: seven shapes [ 20 ], and hTrihex: two shapes [ 27 ]). According to [ 28 , 29 , 30 ], area coverage performance of a reconfigurable robot can be improved by considering beyond a small set of predefined shapes for the reconfiguration. The main argument of the work can be explained with the aid of the examples shown in Figure 1 a,b, which represent two scenarios where a robot is covering obstacles to maximize the coverage and the robot navigates through obstacles while changing its shape.…”

“…Handling this sort of reconfiguration and locomotion of a reconfigurable robot through low-level modeling and control is challenging. However, the work in [ 28 , 29 , 30 ] is limited to high-level simulations that assess the coverage performance, and the low-level modeling and controlling required for achieving the desired goals have not been discussed in the scope.…”

Robot Floor-Tiling Control Method Based on Finite-State Machine and Visual Measurement in Limited FOV

“…Many construction robots are applied to perform specific tasks on construction sites, such as construction fabrication robot [6], drilling robot [7], and marking robot [8]. e usage of robots to replace manual building maintenance and construction in harsh environment will improve the construction industry [9,10], such as reducing the physical intensity labor, avoiding construction hazards, improving construction efficiency, and ensuring construction quality. Hence, researchers began to pay more attention to the research of construction robot technology [11,12].…”