12,436 research outputs found
Influence of self-disassembly of bridges on collective flow characteristics of swarm robots in a single-lane and periodic system with a gap
Inspired by the living bridges formed by ants, swarm robots have been
developed to self-assemble bridges to span gaps and self-disassemble them.
Self-disassembly of bridges may increase the transport efficiency of swarm
robots by increasing the number of moving robots, and also may decrease the
efficiency by causing gaps to reappear. Our aim is to elucidate the influence
of self-disassembly of bridges on the collective flow characteristics of swarm
robots in a single-lane and periodic system with a gap. In the system, robots
span and cross the gap by self-assembling a single-layer bridge. We consider
two scenarios in which self-disassembling bridges is prevented
(prevent-scenario) or allowed (allow-scenario). We represent the horizontal
movement of robots with a typical car-following model, and simply model the
actions of robots for self-assembling and self-disassembling bridges. Numerical
simulations have revealed the following results. Flow-density diagrams in both
the scenarios shift to the higher-density region as the gap length increases.
When density is low, allow-scenario exhibits the steady state of repeated
self-assembly and self-disassembly of bridges. If density is extremely low,
flow in this state is greater than flow in prevent-scenario owing to the
increase in the number of robots moving horizontally. Otherwise, flow in this
state is smaller than flow in prevent-scenario. Besides, flow in this state
increases monotonically with respect to the velocity of robots in joining and
leaving bridges. Thus, self-disassembling bridges is recommended for only
extremely low-density conditions in periodic systems. This study contributes to
the development of the collective dynamics of self-driven particles that
self-assemble structures, and stirs the dynamics with other self-assembled
structures, such as ramps, chains, and towers.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure
Physical interactions in swarm robotics: the hand-bot case study
This paper presents a case-study on the performance achieved by the mechanical interactions of self-assembling mobile robots. This study is based on the hand-bot robot, designed to operate within heterogeneous swarms of robots. The hand-bot is specialized in object manipulation and can improve its performance by exploiting physical collaborations by self-assembling with other hand-bots or with foot-bots (ground robots). The paper analyzes the achieved performance and demonstrates the highly super-linear properties of the accessible volume in respect to the number of robots. These extremely interesting performances are strongly linked to the self-assembling mechanisms and the physical nature of the interaction, and do not scale to a large number of robots. Finally, this study suggests that such interesting properties are more accessible for heterogeneous systems or devices achieving complex tasks
Modelling and analyzing adaptive self-assembling strategies with Maude
Building adaptive systems with predictable emergent behavior is a challenging task and it is becoming a critical need. The research community has accepted the challenge by introducing approaches of various nature: from software architectures, to programming paradigms, to analysis techniques. We recently proposed a conceptual framework for adaptation centered around the role of control data. In this paper we show that it can be naturally realized in a reflective logical language like Maude by using the Reflective Russian Dolls model. Moreover, we exploit this model to specify and analyse a prominent example of adaptive system: robot swarms equipped with obstacle-avoidance self-assembly strategies. The analysis exploits the statistical model checker PVesta
Using Smart Cameras to Localize Self-Assembling Modular Robots
In order to realize the goal of self assembling or self reconfiguring modular robots the constituent modules in the system need to be able to gauge their position and orientation with respect to each other. This paper describes an approach to solving this localization problem by equipping each of the modules in the ensemble with a smart camera system. The paper describes one implementation of this scheme on a modular robotic system and discusses the results of a self assembly experiment
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