A robotically reconfigurable truss

Abstract

Abstract—This paper addresses the design of passive robotically-reconfigurable truss structures and progress towards a robot capable of manipulating such structures. The elements are designed to be inserted and removed singly in “random access, ” thus eliminating some assembly order constraints and enabling a physical realization of the construction process. The proposed robot is a “hinge ” robot that can demonstrate manipulating said elements. The robot is also designed to be able to traverse arbitrary scale truss structures. With the addition of reconfiguration algorithms discussed by Lobo in [1], we suggest that such reconfigurable structures and robots could open the door to a machine metabolic process where structures are decomposed and recomposed autonomously to meet varying needs to a variety of applications from infrastructure recovery to space exploration. Index Terms—reconfigurable robotics 1.