Metamorphic Robots PDF
Metamorphic Robots PDF
Metamorphic Robots PDF
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ABSTRACT 1 INTRODUCTION
This paper discusses issues in the design and implementa- A metamorphic robotic system Ch94] is a collection
tion of metamorphic robotic systems. A metamorphic robotic of independently controlled mechatronic modules, each of
system is a collection of independently controlled mechatronic which has the ability to connect, disconnect, and climb over
modules, each of which has the ability to connect, disconnect, adjacent modules. Each module allows power and informa-
and climb over adjacent modules. A metamorphic system can tion to ow through itself and to its neighbors. A change in
dynamically recongure by the locomotion of modules over their the metamorphic robot morphology (i.e., a change in the rel-
neighbors. Thus they can be viewed as a collection of connected
modular robots which act together to perform the given task. ative location of modules within the collection) results from
The planar metamorphic robots described in this paper consist the locomotion of each module over its neighbors. Thus
of hexagonal or square modules. Because of their shape, the a metamorphic system has the ability to dynamically self-
modules completely ll the plane without any gaps, their centers recongure.
forming a regular lattice. Both the hexagonal and square mod- Metamorphic systems can be viewed as a large swarm
ules are provided with electromechanical coupling mechanisms (or colony) of connected robots which collectively act as
actuated by D.C. motors. These connectors help to couple and a single entity. What distinguishes metamorphic systems
uncouple modules as they move around each other to form dif- from other recongurable robots is that they possess all of
ferent congurations. The modules are currently controlled by the following properties:
an external processor.
1. All modules have the same physical structure, and each
must have complete computational and communication
1 Graduate Student functionality. This allows uniform treatment of mod-
2 Graduate Student ules in the planning problem.
3 Undergraduate Student
Assistant Professor
Copyright
4
1 c 1996 by ASME
2. Symmetries in the mechanical structure of the modules design of planar square modules and their locomotion pro-
must be such that they ll planar and spatial regions cess is discussed. One important aspect of such design is
with minimal gaps. In this way, a lattice of modules is that the centers of the square modules form a Cartesian
formed for any task. lattice, thus can be easily extended to spatial case with a
3. The modules must have enough degrees of freedom to cubic module design. Section 6 presents the conclusions.
be able to `walk' over adjacent modules so that they
can recongure without outside help.
4. Modules must adhere to adjacent modules, e.g., there
must be electromechanical or electromagnetic connec- 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
tors between modules which can carry load. This causes The idea of a metamorphic robotic system diers from
the collection of modules to act as a single physical ob- related concepts presented in the literature. Three types of
ject. modular recongurable robotic systems have been proposed
in the literature: (1) robots in which modules are recong-
Potential applications of metamorphic systems com- ured using external intervention, e.g., BeZL89, CoLDB92,
posed of a large number of modules include : (1) obsta- Sci85, Wu86] (2) cellular robotic systems in which a het-
cle avoidance in highly constrained and unstructured envi- erogeneous collection of independent specialized modules
ronments (2) `growing' structures composed of modules to are coordinated, e.g., Be88, BeW91, FuN88, FuK90] (3)
form bridges, buttresses, and other civil structures in times swarm intelligence in which there are generally no physical
of emergency (3) envelopment of objects, such as recov- connections between modules, e.g., HaB91]. Most recently,
ering satellites from space (4) Performing inspections in two other types of modular recongurable robotic systems
constrained environments such as nuclear reactors. Some of have been considered. Yim93,Yim94] considered modular
these applications are shown in Figure 1. robots composed of a few basic elements which can be com-
posed into complex systems, and used for various modes
of locomotion. MuKK94, MuKK95] considered a `fractal'
system composed of modules with zero kinematic mobility,
but which can `walk' over each other in discrete quanta due
to changes in the polarity of magnetic elds.
In the present work, where the design of a mechanically
error tolerant coupling mechanism is also important, an-
other body of literature is relevant. Namely, work that deals
Figure 1. Examples of Metamorphic Robot Applications with the mechanics of pushing and friction and work that
uses geometric and physical constraints to guarantee desired
performance with minimal numbers of crude sensors, e.g.,
AkM92, CaG94, ErM88, Ma93, PeS89, PeBG93]. By using
This paper discusses issues in the design of two dier- this `minimalist' philosophy, we have developed a coupling
ent planar modules. Section 2 contains a brief literature device for metamorphic robots that requires no sensors and
review. In Section 3 the basic design of planar hexagonal has a geometry that allows for signicant errors. This is
modules and their locomotion process is discussed. One of important because a metamorphic robotic system may fre-
the most important aspects of the above design is the con- quently need to recongure, and so the connection between
nector mechanism. The connector not only has to adhere modules must be reliable.
to the adjacent module but also has to allow sliding motion The motion planning problem of a metamorphic robot
of the links. In addition it should be a passive or a quasi- has been previouly discussed by Ch94, PECh95]. SMCh93]
passive mechanism so as to use minimum power i.e, once it consider the motion of planar hexagonal metamorphic mod-
has coupled or uncoupled the modules, it should require no ules using 'local' constraints and describe the performance
power to maintain the connection. This paper describes one of various algorithms under these constraints.
such error-tolerant coupling mechanism design for hexago-
nal modules, i.e the coupling mechanism can take into ac-
count wide variations in connector position on the mating
link. Section 4 describes some alternatives in the design of 3 BASIC DESIGN AND LOCOMOTION OF HEXAGONAL
couplings for hexagonal modules and discusses the design MODULES
and implementation of an error-tolerant connector mecha- This section describes the design of planar hexagonal
nism satisfying the above conditions. In Section 5 the basic modules and the locomotion process of the modules.
2 Copyright
c 1996 by ASME
3.1 Module Design
Section 1 described the four important properties of
metamorphic robots. One of the designs which satises all
those properties in the planar case involves the use of hexag-
onal modules. Each module, as shown in Figure 2, consists
of six links of equal length forming a six bar linkage.
connectors.
The female connector consists of three parallel plates
with seven gears mounted on the middle plate. The two
Figure 12. The mechanical structure of a square module outermost gears mesh with the rack of the shuttle of its
neighboring male connector. One of these two gears will be
actuated by a D.C. motor and serves as a driving gear for
the female connector. The top and bottom plates, called
Figures 14 and 15 are semi-exploded views of the male the jaws, can slide open or close along three guiding rods
and female connectors respectively. perpendicular to the plates. This opening and closing jaw
The male connector consists of two parallel plates with movement is actuated by a D.C. motor. The jaws are to
space in between. There are one driving gear and two rollers remain closed (see Figure 16) unless there is another mod-
mounted on the bottom plate. An H-shaped mating link ule coming from the direction perpendicular to the edge of
called the shuttle with racks attached to both sides are to the female connector. In that case, we have to open the
be driven by the driving gear. The shuttle will remain con- jaws (see Figure 17) so that the shuttle of the incoming
nected to the male connector while sliding back and forth module can come in. The shuttle will be locked in position
in the rails formed by the tracks of both male and female when the jaws close, thus completing the mating process.
7 Copyright
c 1996 by ASME
Figure 17. Open position for the jaws
7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was made possible by a 1994 Presidential
Faculty Fellow Award from the NSF.
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10 Copyright
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