Tutorial

Self-Reconfigurable Robotics

 

Half Day PM, Friday, May 19, 2006

Room: Salon 3 (Room is changed !!)

 

Organizers:

Satoshi Murata (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)

Haruhisa Kurokawa (AIST, Japan)

 

Objectives and Topics

 

Self-Reconfigurable robot (SR robot) is a cellular robot that is capable of adapting its shape and functions to changing environments and demands. Its design philosophy takes root in biology in the most fundamental sense. Namely, the basic component of the Self-Reconfigurable robot is a "mechanical cell," a robotic module capable of processing information. In contrast with conventional robots with fixed configuration, the SR robots dynamically rearrange their configuration to change its functionalities. Because of their potential flexibility the SR robots attracts many researchers, and considerable amount of studies have been done since Fukuda's first presentation at ICRA'87.

The objectives of this tutorial is to show an overall perspective of this field, current status of research, and discuss the future direction of the field.

 

- Background and overview of historical development in SR robotics

- Introduction of various SR hardware and SR algorithms

- Current status in SR robotics

- Future of SR robotics (Open problems, potential applications etc.)

 

Intended Audience

 

- Researchers involved in or interested in SR robotics

- Students in Robotics, Control Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biology

- Engineers interested in application of SR robots

 

Program updated!!

 1300-1330 Opening remark
 Self-reconfigurable Robots
 Satoshi Murata
 30 min

 1330-1400
 Reconfigurable Robotics - Individual versus System
 Toshio Fukuda 
 30 min

 1400-1500
 Probabilistic Reasoning about Stochastic Self-Reconfigurable Robots
 Eric Klavins 
 60 min

 1500-1600
 Modular Robot M-TRAN - Locomotion & Self-Reconfiguration
 Haruhisa Kurokawa 
 60 min

 1600-1645
 Advances in Self-Reconfigurable Robots (Part I)
 ~Control of ATRON Self-reconfigurable Robots
 Kasper Stoy
 45 min

 1645-1715
 Advances in Self-Reconfigurable Robots (Part II)
 ~Using Modular Robotics in Industry
 David J. Christensen
 30 min

 1715 Closing remark
 Haruhisa Kurokawa

Self-Reconfigurable Robots – Opening Remark

 

Satoshi Murata

Tokyo Institute of Technology

murata@dis.titech.ac.jp

http://www.murata.dis.titech.ac.jp

 

 

 

Self-Assembly and Self-Repair

 

 

Self-Assembly of Fracta

Reconfigurable Robotics - Individual versus System

 

Toshio Fukuda

Nagoya University

fukuda@mein.nagoya-u.ac.jp

http://www.mein.nagoya-u.ac.jp/index.html

 

 

 

 

 

CEBOT
Advances in Self-Reconfigurable Robots

~Control of ATRON Self-reconfigurable Robots

~Using Modular Robotics in Industry

 

Henrik Hatop Lund

University of Southern Denmark

hhl@mip.sdu.dk

http://www.mip.sdu.dk/~hhl/

 

  

 

ATRON
Probabilistic Reasoning about Stochastic Self-Reconfigurable Robots

 

Erik Klavins

University of Washington

klavins@ee.washington.edu

http://faculty.washington.edu/klavins/

 

I will review probabilistic logic and model checking and show how it can be used to reason about and program SR robots to achieve provably correct and robust behaviors. The theory applies to reaction networks in general, and I will give an overview over other applications.

 

 

 

Modular Robot M-TRAN

- Locomotion & Self-Reconfiguration

Haruhisa Kurokawa

AIST

kurokawa-h@aist.go.jp

http://unit.aist.go.jp/is/dsysd/mtran3/

 

M-TRAN is a modular robot developed by AIST and Tokyo Institute of Technology. It is designed as a hybrid of a chain type and a lattice type modular robots. Like a chain type one, it can make flexible locomotion in various configurations. As a lattice one, it can self-reconfigure. Flexible locomotion obtained by two techniques, CPG (Central Pattern Generator) and GA, programming of self-reconfiguration, and experimental results will be presented.

 

Self-Reconfiguration of M-TRAN

 

Demonstration at World Expo 2005