Paper Info
Title
A distributed self-reconfiguration algorithm for cylindrical lattice-based modular robots
Abstract
Modular self-reconfigurable robots are composed of independent connected modules which can self-rearrange their connectivity using processing, communication and motion capabilities, in order to change the overall robot structure. In this paper, we consider rolling cylindrical modules arranged in a two-dimensional vertical hexagonal lattice. We propose a parallel, asynchronous and fully decentralized distributed algorithm to self-reconfigure robots from an initial configuration to a goal one. We evaluate our algorithm on the millimeter-scale cylindrical robots, developed in the Claytronics project, through simulation of large ensembles composed of up to ten thousand modules. We show the effectiveness of our algorithm and study its performance in terms of communications, movements and execution time. Our observations indicate that the number of communications, the number of movements and the execution time of our algorithm is highly predictable. Furthermore, we observe execution times that are linear in the size of the goal shape.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1109/NCA.2016.7778628
2016 IEEE 15th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA)
Keywords
Field
DocType
Distributed algorithm,Self-reconfiguration algorithm,Modular robotic,Programmable Matter,Ensembles
Hexagonal lattice,Asynchronous communication,Claytronics,Computer science,Robot kinematics,Distributed algorithm,Self-reconfiguring modular robot,Artificial intelligence,Modular design,Robot,Machine learning
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
978-1-5090-3217-4
1
0.36
References 
Authors
14
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
André Naz132.07
Piranda Benoit23811.22
Bourgeois Julien340363.53
Seth Copen Goldstein41951232.71