Abstract
A new self-assembly modular robot (SMR) SambotII is developed based on SambotI, which is a previously-built hybird type SMR that is capable of autonomous movement and self-assembly. As is known, SambotI only has limited abilities of environmental perception and target recognition, because its STM-32 processor cannot handle heavy work, like image processing and path planning. To improve the computing ability, an x86 dual-core CPU is applied and a hierarchical software architecture with five layers is designed. In addition, to enhance its perception abilities, a laser-camera unit and a LED-camera unit are employed to obtain the distance and angle information, respectively, and the color-changeable LED lights are used to identify different passive docking surfaces during the docking process. Finally, the performances of SambotII are verified by docking experiments.
Highlights
A self-assembly or self-reconfiguration modular robot (SMR) system is composed of a collection of connected modules with certain degrees of locomotion, sensing, and intercommunication [1,2,3]
The concept of dynamically self-reconfigurable robotic system was firstly proposed by Toshio
In spite of the significant advances of SMRs, researchers in this field believe that there is a gap between the state-of-art research on modular robots and their real-world applications [3]
Summary
A self-assembly or self-reconfiguration modular robot (SMR) system is composed of a collection of connected modules with certain degrees of locomotion, sensing, and intercommunication [1,2,3]. When compared with robots that have fixed topologies, SMR systems have some advantages, such as versatility, robustness, and low cost [4]. The concept of dynamically self-reconfigurable robotic system was firstly proposed by Toshio. Fukuda in 1988 [5]. Many interesting robot systems have been proposed. In spite of the significant advances of SMRs, researchers in this field believe that there is a gap between the state-of-art research on modular robots and their real-world applications [3]. As Stoy and Kurokawa [6] stated, the applications of self-reconfigurable robots are still elusive
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