Docking among Independent and Autonomous CONRO Self-Reconfigurable Robots

Michael Rubenstein, Kenneth Payne, Peter Will, and Wei-Min Shen. Docking among Independent and Autonomous CONRO Self-Reconfigurable Robots. In Proc. 2004 IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp. 2877–2882, New Orleans, USA, April/May 2004.

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Abstract

Docking between independent groups of self-reconfigurable robotic modules enables the merger of two or more independent self-reconfigurable robots. This ability allows independent reconfigurable robots in the same environment to join together to complete a task that would otherwise not be possible with the individual robots prior to merging. The challenges for this task include: (1) coordinate and align two independent self-reconfigurable robots using the docking guidance system available only at the connectors of the docking modules; (2) overcome the inevitable errors in the alignment by a novel and coordinated movements from both docking ends; (3) ensure the secure connection at the end of docking; (4) switch configuration and let modules to discover the changes and new connections so that the two docked robots will move as a single coherent robot. We have developed methods for overcome these challenging problems and accomplished for the first time an actual docking between two independent CONRO robots each with multiple modules.

BibTeX Entry

@InProceedings{	  rubenstein2004docking-among-independent-and-autonomous,
  abstract	= {Docking between independent groups of self-reconfigurable
		  robotic modules enables the merger of two or more
		  independent self-reconfigurable robots. This ability allows
		  independent reconfigurable robots in the same environment
		  to join together to complete a task that would otherwise
		  not be possible with the individual robots prior to
		  merging. The challenges for this task include: (1)
		  coordinate and align two independent self-reconfigurable
		  robots using the docking guidance system available only at
		  the connectors of the docking modules; (2) overcome the
		  inevitable errors in the alignment by a novel and
		  coordinated movements from both docking ends; (3) ensure
		  the secure connection at the end of docking; (4) switch
		  configuration and let modules to discover the changes and
		  new connections so that the two docked robots will move as
		  a single coherent robot. We have developed methods for
		  overcome these challenging problems and accomplished for
		  the first time an actual docking between two independent
		  CONRO robots each with multiple modules.},
  address	= {New Orleans, USA},
  author	= {Michael Rubenstein and Kenneth Payne and Peter Will and
		  Wei-Min Shen},
  booktitle	= icra-04,
  month		= {April/May},
  pages		= {2877--2882},
  title		= {Docking among Independent and Autonomous {CONRO}
		  Self-Reconfigurable Robots},
  year		= {2004}
}