Design and Experiments of a Compact Self-Assembling Mobile Modular Robot with Joint Actuation and Onboard Visual-Based Perception

Abstract

Modular robots have the advantage of self-assembling into a large and complex structure to travel through territories beyond an individual robot’s capacity. A swarm of mobile robots is combined through mechanical interconnection and joint actuation to achieve a linked or articular configuration. In this paper, to enhance the perception, actuation and docking capacity of modular robots, a parallel mechanism-based docking system and onboard visual perception system are proposed in the design of a novel compact self-assembling mobile modular robot (SMMRob). Each module is self-contained, with a sensing or joint function. The robot modules can dock with each other based on relative positioning, which employs the visual perception of passive markers or active infrared signals in different localizations. Performance experiments were conducted to evaluate the robot module. Docking experiments were performed, along with an analysis of the success and failure results. The self-assembly of snake-like and quadruped robots was achieved in response to different environments, including an obstacle, gap or stair, and experiments were performed on self-assembly into a snake-like structure.