Motion simulation and experiment of a novel modular self-reconfigurable robot

摘要

Based on the character of the modular self-reconfigurable (MSR) robot, a novel homogeneous and lattice MSR robot, M-Cubes, was designed. Each module unit of the robot has 12 freedoms and is composed of six rotary joints and one cubic link. An attached/detached mechanism was designed on the rotary joints. A novel space transmitting system was placed on the inner portion of the cubic link. A motor separately transmitted torque to the six joints which were distributed equally on six surfaces of the cubic link. The example of a basic motion for the module was demonstrated. The result shows that the robot is concise and compact in structure, highly efficient in transmission, credible in connecting, and simple in controlling. At the same time, a simulator is developed to graphically design the system configuration, the reconfiguration process and the motion of cluster modules. The character of local action for the cellular automata (CA) is utilized. Each module is simplified as a cell. The transition rules of the CA are developed to combine with the genetic algorithm (GA) and applied to each module to accomplish distributed control. Simulation proves that the method is effective and feasible.