How to Construct Dense Objects with Self-Reconfigurable Robots

摘要

Self-reconfigurable robots can change their shape by rearranging the modules from which they are built. This self-reconfiguration process has proven difficult to control, because it involves control of a distributed system of autonomous, but mechanically coupled modules connected in time-varying ways. In this work we address this control problem and specifically look at how to construct dense configurations.rnThe basic idea behind our solution is that holes inside the desired configuration and modules outside attract each other. The effect is that holes propagate to the surface of the desired configuration and modules outside move in to fill them. This basic solution is augmented with a scaffold and gradient-based algorithm which ensures that the robot does not get stuck in local minima or get disconnected during self-reconfiguration.rnThe approach is evaluated in simulation and we find that the self-reconfiguration process always converges and the time to complete a configuration scales approximately linearly with the number of modules. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first time this result has been obtained for dense configuration.