Kilobot: A Robotic Module for Demonstrating Behaviors in a Large Scale (2102^{10} Units) Collective

A collective of robots can together complete a task that is beyond the capabilities of any of its individual robots. One property of a robotic collective that allows it to complete such a task is the shape of the collective. This paper presents Kilobot, a simple modular robot designed to work in a collective to self-assemble and self-heal that collective’s shape. In previous work, an algorithm is given that allows a simulated collective of robots to self-assemble and self-heal a desired shape, keeping the shape sized proportional to the number of robots in the collective. In this abstract, the current work of producing a robotic collective that can demonstrate that algorithm is presented.Engineering and Applied Science

Three Cases of Connectivity and Global Information Transfer in Robot Swarms

In this work we consider three different cases of robot-robot interactions and resulting global information transfer in robot swarms. These mechanisms define cooperative properties of the system and can be used for designing collective behavior. These three cases are demonstrated and discussed based on experiments in a swarm of microrobots "Jasmine"

Strategi Self-Assembly Paralel pada Swarm Robot

ABSTRAK Dari banyaknya strategi yang diusulkan untuk proses self-assembly pada swarm robotics, hanya beberapa grup riset berkonsentrasi di bidang ini yang mengusulkan proses paralel pada penggabungan antar robot. Tetapi, strategi ini hanya digunakan ketika sebuah robot memerlukan tumpuan dari dua robot atau lebih pada satu waktu. Berdasar pada kebutuhan untuk menyebarkan ratusan hingga ribuan robot pada satu swarm, strategi penggabungan antar robot satu-demi-satu memerlukan waktu yang sangat lama untuk diselesaikan. Di artikel ini, strategi self-assembly antar robot pada suatu swarm secara paralel diusulkan untuk mengurangi waktu proses self-assembly dengan menempatkan sejumlah robot di posisi tertentu. Saat penggabungan, robot-robot ini akan bergerak menempatkan dirinya sesuai dengan posisi akhir yang ditargetkan. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa strategi ini dapat mereduksi waktu proses self-assembly hingga setengah dari waktu yang diperlukan dengan proses penggabungan satu-demi-satu. Kata kunci: swarm robot, self-assembly, proses paralel   ABSTRACT Despite the number of strategies proposed for self-assembly process in swarm robotics, only few research groups working in this area have proposed the parallel process of robots assembled each other. However, this strategy only works when a robot needs to be supported by two or more robots in a time. When deploying hundred to thousand robots in a swarm is required, the strategy of robots connecting to the structure of assembled robots in a one-by-one manner requires an extremely long time to accomplish. In this paper, a strategy of parallel selfassembly for robots in a swarm is proposed for reducing the self-assembly process time by placing a number of robots at particular positions. While connecting, they will move to position themselves appropriately to the targeted final structure. Result shows that this strategy can reduce the process of self-assembly time up to half of the time required for one-by-one process. Keywords: swarm robots, self-assembly, parallel proces

Adaptive locomotion of snake-like robots

Adaptive locomotion for multi-robot organisms is a huge challenge in modern robotics. The complexity grows fast with the number of degrees of freedom (DOFs) of a robot. A snake like organism structure usually consists of many DOFs and is hence restricted in their motion capabilities. In this theses, an adaptive gait algorithm for avoiding of obstacles should be analyzed by using techniques of coupled oscillators. The simulation in MATLAB as well as tests on a real snake robot will be done in this work. In the MATLAB simulation we could see the principle of adaptive snake-like locomotion as it should be. As well we could analyse fitting functions for the oszillator in the Central Pattern Generator. On the real snake robot we had to take the theoretical foundations and adapt them to make them work on real-time operating system. It was faszinating to work on all difficulties be communication, configuration, designing or programming. And finally we saw the robot crawl arround obstacles, controlled by the equations we developed. It would be great to see our work live on in projects like SYMBRION and REPLICATOR

Computing multi-scale organizations built through assembly

The ability to generate and control assembling structures built over many orders of magnitude is an unsolved challenge of engineering and science. Many of the presumed transformational benefits of nanotechnology and robotics are based directly on this capability. There are still significant theoretical difficulties associated with building such systems, though technology is rapidly ensuring that the tools needed are becoming available in chemical, electronic, and robotic domains. In this thesis a simulated, general-purpose computational prototype is developed which is capable of unlimited assembly and controlled by external input, as well as an additional prototype which, in structures, can emulate any other computing device. These devices are entirely finite-state and distributed in operation. Because of these properties and the unique ability to form unlimited size structures of unlimited computational power, the prototypes represent a novel and useful blueprint on which to base scalable assembly in other domains. A new assembling model of Computational Organization and Regulation over Assembly Levels (CORAL) is also introduced, providing the necessary framework for this investigation. The strict constraints of the CORAL model allow only an assembling unit of a single type, distributed control, and ensure that units cannot be reprogrammed - all reprogramming is done via assembly. Multiple units are instead structured into aggregate computational devices using a procedural or developmental approach. Well-defined comparison of computational power between levels of organization is ensured by the structure of the model. By eliminating ambiguity, the CORAL model provides a pragmatic answer to open questions regarding a framework for hierarchical organization. Finally, a comparison between the designed prototypes and units evolved using evolutionary algorithms is presented as a platform for further research into novel scalable assembly. Evolved units are capable of recursive pairing ability under the control of a signal, a primitive form of unlimited assembly, and do so via symmetry-breaking operations at each step. Heuristic evidence for a required minimal threshold of complexity is provided by the results, and challenges and limitations of the approach are identified for future evolutionary studies

Development and evaluation of vision processing algorithms in multi-robotic systems.

The trend in swarm robotics research is shifting to the design of more complicated systems in which the robots have abilities to form a robotic organism. In such systems, a single robot has very limited memory and processing resources, but the complete system is rich in these resources. As vision sensors provide rich surrounding awareness and vision algorithms also requires intensive processing. Therefore, vision processing tasks are the best candidate for distributed processing in such systems. To perform distributed vision processing, a number of scenarios are considered in swarm and the robotic organism form. In the swarm form, as the robots use low bandwidth wireless communication medium, so the exchange of simple visual features should be made between robots. This is addressed in a swarm mode scenario, where novel distance vector features are exchanged within a swarm of robots to generate a precise environmental map. The generated map facilitates the robot navigation in the environment. If features require encoding with high density information, then sharing of such features is not possible using the wireless channel with limited bandwidth. So methods were devised which process such features onboard and then share the process outcome to perform vision processing in a distributed fashion. This is shown in another swarm mode scenario in which a number of optimisation stages are followed and novel image pre-processing techniques are developed which enable the robots to perform onboard object recognition, and then share the process outcome in terms of object identity and its distance from the robot, to localise the objects. In the robotic organism, the use of reliable communication medium facilitates vision processing in distributed fashion, and this is presented in two scenarios. In the first scenario, the robotic organism detect objects in the environment in distributed fashion, but to get detailed surrounding awareness, the organism needs to learn these objects. This leads to a second scenario, which presents a modular approach to object classification and recognition. This approach provides a mechanism to learn newly detected objects and also ensure faster response to object recognition. Using the modular approach, it is also demonstrated that the collective use of 4 distributed processing resources in a robotic organism can provide 5 times the performance of an individual robot module. The overall performance was comparable to an individual less flexible robot (e.g., Pioneer-3AT) with significant higher processing capability