Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
8-1-2009
Publication Title
Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications
Abstract
In this paper we propose a novel algorithm that, given a source robot S and a target robot T, reconfigures S into T. Both S and T are robots composed of n atoms arranged in 2×2×2 meta-modules. The reconfiguration involves a total of O(n) atomic operations (expand, contract, attach, detach) and is performed in O(n) parallel steps. This improves on previous reconfiguration algorithms [D. Rus, M. Vona, Crystalline robots: Self-reconfiguration with compressible unit modules, Autonomous Robots 10 (1) (2001) 107-124; S. Vassilvitskii, M. Yim, J. Suh, A complete, local and parallel reconfiguration algorithm for cube style modular robots, in: Proc. of the IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, 2002, pp. 117-122; Z. Butler, D. Rus, Distributed planning and control for modular robots with unit-compressible modules, Intl. J. Robotics Res. 22 (9) (2003) 699-715, doi:10.1177/02783649030229002], which require O( n2) parallel steps. Our algorithm is in-place; that is, the reconfiguration takes place within the union of the bounding boxes of the source and target robots. We show that the algorithm can also be implemented in a synchronous, distributed fashion.
Keywords
Cubical units, In-place reconfiguration, Lattice reconfiguration, Self-reconfiguring modular robots, Synchronous distributed module communication
Volume
42
Issue
6-7
First Page
652
Last Page
663
DOI
10.1016/j.comgeo.2008.11.003
ISSN
09257721
Rights
© 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Recommended Citation
Aloupis, Greg; Collette, Sébastien; Damian, Mirela; Demaine, Erik D.; Flatland, Robin; Langerman, Stefan; O'Rourke, Joseph; Ramaswami, Suneeta; Sacristán, Vera; and Wuhrer, Stefanie, "Linear Reconfiguration of Cube-Style Modular Robots" (2009). Computer Science: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/csc_facpubs/187
Comments
Archived as published. Open access article.