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A stochastic self-replicating robot capable of hierarchical assembly

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2011

Georgios Kaloutsakis  and
Gregory S. Chirikjian
Georgios Kaloutsakis*
Affiliation:
Medotics AG, Saint-Louis-Str. 31, c/o Alltax AG, 4056 Basel, Switzerland
Gregory S. Chirikjian
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles, 223 Latrobe Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: g.kaloutsakis@medotics.com
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Summary

This paper presents the development of a self-replicating mobile robot that functions by undergoing stochastic motions. The robot functions hierarchically. There are three stages in this hierarchy: (1) An initial pool of feed modules/parts together with one functional basic robot; (2) a collection of basic robots that are spontaneously formed out of these parts as a result of a chain reaction induced by stochastic motion of the initial seed robot at stage 1; (3) complex formations of joined basic robots from stage 2. In the first part of this paper we demonstrate basic stochastic self-replication in unstructured environments. A single functional robot moves around at random in a sea of stock modules and catalyzes the conversion of these modules into replicas. In the second part of the paper, the robots are upgraded with a layer that enables mechanical connections between robots. The replicas can then connect to each other and aggregate. Finally, self-reconfigurability is presented for two robotic aggregations.

Keywords

Swarm roboticsRobotic self-replicationModular robotsMechatronic systemsManufacturingMobile robotsMulti-robot systemsRobotic self-diagnosisSelf-repair
Type
Article
Information
Robotica , Volume 29 , Special Issue 1: Robotic Self-X Systems , January 2011 , pp. 137 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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