Anatomy-based organization of morphology and control in self-reconfigurable modular robots

David Johan Christensen, Jason Campbell, Kasper Støy

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    Abstract

    In this paper, we address the challenge of realizing full-body behaviors in scalable modular robots. We present an experimental study of a biologically inspired approach to organize the morphology and control of modular robots. The approach introduces a nested hierarchy that decomposes the complexity of assembling and commanding a functional robot made of numerous simple modules. The purpose is to support versatility, scalability, and provide design abstraction. The robots we describe incorporate anatomy-inspired parts such as muscles, bones, and joints, and these parts in turn are assembled from modules. Each of those parts encapsulates one or more functions, e.g., a muscle can contract. Control of the robot can then be cast as a problem of controlling its anatomical parts rather than each discrete module. To validate this approach, we perform experiments with micron-scale spherical catom modules in simulation. The robots we simulate are increasingly complex and include snake, crawler, quadruped, cilia surface, arm-joint-muscle, and grasping robots. We conclude that this is a promising approach for future microscopic many-modules systems, but also that it is not applicable to relatively weak and slow homogeneous systems such as the centimeter-scale ATRON.
    OriginalsprogUdefineret/Ukendt
    TidsskriftNeural Computing and Applications
    Vol/bind19
    Udgave nummer6
    Sider (fra-til)787-805
    Antal sider19
    ISSN0941-0643
    DOI
    StatusUdgivet - 2010

    Emneord

    • Computer Networks
    • Design Abstraction
    • Modular Robots
    • NCA 2010
    • Robots

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