| Volume 21 Issue 10 - Publication Date: 1 October 2002 |
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| Special issue on International
Symposia on Experimental Robotics 2000 |
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| A Self-Reconfigurable Modular
Robot : Reconfiguration Planning and Experiments |
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| Eiichi Yoshida, Satoshi
Murata, Akiya Kamimura, Kohji Tomita, Haruhisa Kurokawa
and Shigeru Kokaji Distributed System Design Research Group, Intelligent
Systems Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial, Science and
Technology (AIST), 1-2-1 Namiki, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki 305-8564, Japan
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| In this paper we address a
reconfiguration planning method for locomotion of a homogeneous modular
robotic system and we conduct an experiment to verify that the planned locomotion
can be realized by hardware. Our recently developed module is self-reconfigurable.
A group of the modules can thus generate various three-dimensional robotic
structures and motions. Although the module itself is a simple mechanism,
self-reconfiguration planning for locomotion presents a computationally
difficult problem due to the many combinatorial possibilities of modular
configurations. In this paper, we develop a two-layered planning method
for locomotion of a class of regular structures. This locomotion mode is
based on multi-module blocks. The upper layer plans the overall cluster
motion called flow to realize locomotion along a given desired trajectory;
the lower layer determines locally cooperative module motions, called motion
schemes, based on a rule database. A planning simulation demonstrates that
this approach effectively solves the complicated planning problem. Besides
the fundamental motion capacity of the module, the hardware feasibility
of the planning locomotion is verified through a self-reconfiguration experiment
using the prototype modules we have developed. |
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| Multimedia Key |
= Video |
 = Data |
= Code |
= Image |
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Extension |
Type |
Description |
| 1 |
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A novel self-reconfigurable modular robot
has been developed in National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science
and Technology (AIST), Japan. The modular robot is called MTRAN (Modular
TRANSformer). Although it has a simple mechanism, but a collection
of the MTRAN modules can configure itself into various three-dimensional
robotic structures. The
video describes its mechanism (Fig.1 - Fig.3) and basic motions
including forward-roll motions in Fig. 4. (11 MB) |
2 |
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Using the locomotion planner described
in the paper, the cluster motion along a desired trajectory can be
generated. The
movie corresponds to the simulation shown in Fig. 15 in the paper.
Some motions are executed in parallel in this simulation. (5.6 MB) |
3 |
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The
video shows an experiment of block-based cluster motion using
eight MTRAN modules. This is the video from which the still pictures
are taken in Fig. 19 in the paper. The video is 1.5 times faster than
actual speed. |
4 |
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To show versatility and smooth reconfiguration capacity
of MTRAN, another
example of self-reconfiguration from a crawler-type robot to a
4-legged walking robot is provided. Nine modules are used in this
experiment and the video is 1.5 times faster than actual speed. |
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