The meaning of functional reconfiguration under the dynamic environment and system behavior

Abstract

Distributed autonomous robotic system (DARS) has advantage in flexibility, comparing with central control system. The former researches of DARS mainly deal with the system which is composed of homogenous robots. Cellular robotic system (CEBOT) is one of the distributed robotic system which consists of heterogenous robots and they can change their function by means of connection or disconnection of robotic units called "cell". Functional reconfiguration increases the adaptability against the change of environment further, but it has specific problem concerned with the cost for changing its function. This paper deals with the behavior and the property of system that is composed of functionary reconfigurable robots and we focus on the effectivity of dynamic reconfiguration and the property of system, especially the trade-off between the effectivity of reconfiguration and the cost of reconfiguration through computer simulation by using a model of load transport in the production system.