Reconfiguration planning for a self-assembling modular robot

Abstract

Addresses motion planning of a homogeneous modular robotic system. The modules have self-reconfiguration capability so that a group of the modules can construct various robotic structures. Motion planning for self-reconfiguration is a kind of computationally difficult problem because of many combinatorial possibilities of modular configuration against the restricted degrees of freedom of the module; only two rotation axes per module. We show a motion planning method for a class of a multi-module structure, based on global planning and local motion scheme selection that is effective for solving the complicated planning problem. The fundamental motion is also demonstrated through hardware experiments.