Research on self-reconfigurable modular robot system - (Experiments on reconfiguration and locomotion with several modules)

作     者：Kamimura, A Murata, S Yoshida, E Kurokawa, H Tomita, K Kokaji, S 

作者机构：AIST Intelligent Syst Inst Distributed Syst Design Res Grp Tsukuba Ibaraki 3058564 Japan Tokyo Inst Technol Interdisciplinary Grad Sch Sci & Engn Dept Computat Intelligence & Syst Sci Midori Ku Yokohama Kanagawa 2268502 Japan 

出 版 物：《JSME INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL SERIES C-MECHANICAL SYSTEMS MACHINE ELEMENTS AND MANUFACTURING》 (JSME Int. J. Ser. C.)

年 卷 期：2003年第46卷第4期

页      面：1490-1496页

核心收录：

主　　题：mechatronics and robotics modular robot distributed autonomous system self-reconfiguration self-repair robotic motion generation 

摘      要：Growing complexity of artificial systems arises reliability and flexibility issues of large system design. Robots are not exception of this, and many attempts have been made to realize reliable and flexible robot systems. Distributed modular composition of robot is one of the most effective approaches to attain such abilities and has a potential to adapt to its surroundings by changing its configuration autonomously according to information of surroundings. In this paper, we propose a novel three-dimensional self-reconfigurable robotic module. Each module has a very simple structure that consists of two semi-cylindrical parts connected by a link. The modular system is capable of not only building static structure but also generating dynamic robotic motion. We present details of the mechanical/electrical design of the developed module and its control system architecture. Experiments using ten modules with centralized control demonstrate robotic configuration change, crawling locomotion and three types of quadruped locomotion.