Self-reconfigurable modular robots - hardware and software development in AIST

摘要

In this paper we present the development of hardware and software of self-reconfigurable modular robots in National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. Thanks to their flexibility, versatility and fault-tolerance, self-reconfigurable modular robots are expected to be used in various application fields, such as space, rescue or micro-sized world. Our research group has been pioneering this new field and developed several hardware prototypes and corresponding software that exploit the robots' potential. We have been successfully demonstrated the feasibility of the self-reconfigurable modular robots based on experiments from different aspects. Starting from two-dimensional (2D) self-assembling and self-repairing machine fractum, we review hardware development in diverse directions, like to micro-world, three-dimensional (3D) structures and motions; as well as the progress of control software, including distributed control and recent evolutionary motion inquisition.