Docking in Self-Reconfigurable Robots

Wei-Min Shen and Peter Will. Docking in Self-Reconfigurable Robots. In Proc. 2001 IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 1049–1054, 2001.

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Abstract

Docking is a crucial action for self-reconfigurable robots because it supports almost all practical advantages of such robots. In addition to the classic docking challenges found in other applications, such as reliable dock/latch mechanics, effective guiding systems, and intelligent control protocols, docking in self-reconfigurable robots is also subject to some unique constraints. These constraints include the kinematics constraints imposed on the docking modules by other modules in the configuration, communication limitations between the docking and relevant modules, and the demand for distributed control software because of the dynamics of configuration. To solve these challenging problems, this paper reports a set of solutions developed in the CONRO reconfigurable robot project. The paper presents a three-stage docking process, six different alignment protocols, distributed inverse kinematics, and other techniques such as dynamic lubrication that are essential for successful docking in CONRO-like robots. These solutions enable CONRO robots to perform autonomous and distributed reconfigurations in a laboratory environment, and they also suggest important considerations for docking in self-reconfiguration in general.

BibTeX Entry

@InProceedings{	  shen2001docking-in-self-reconfigurable-robots,
  abstract	= {Docking is a crucial action for self-reconfigurable robots
		  because it supports almost all practical advantages of such
		  robots. In addition to the classic docking challenges found
		  in other applications, such as reliable dock/latch
		  mechanics, effective guiding systems, and intelligent
		  control protocols, docking in self-reconfigurable robots is
		  also subject to some unique constraints. These constraints
		  include the kinematics constraints imposed on the docking
		  modules by other modules in the configuration,
		  communication limitations between the docking and relevant
		  modules, and the demand for distributed control software
		  because of the dynamics of configuration. To solve these
		  challenging problems, this paper reports a set of solutions
		  developed in the CONRO reconfigurable robot project. The
		  paper presents a three-stage docking process, six different
		  alignment protocols, distributed inverse kinematics, and
		  other techniques such as dynamic lubrication that are
		  essential for successful docking in CONRO-like robots.
		  These solutions enable CONRO robots to perform autonomous
		  and distributed reconfigurations in a laboratory
		  environment, and they also suggest important considerations
		  for docking in self-reconfiguration in general. },
  author	= {Wei-Min Shen and Peter Will},
  booktitle	= iros-01,
  keywords	= { self-reconfiguration, docking},
  pages		= {1049--1054},
  title		= {Docking in Self-Reconfigurable Robots},
  year		= {2001}
}