SMORES

The design of this system called SMORES (Self-assembling MOdular Robot for Extreme Shapeshifting) is capable of rearranging its modules in all three classes of reconfiguration; lattice style, chain style and mobile reconfiguration. Modules are independently mobile and are capable of self-assembly from a collection of disconnected modules.

Introduction

Self-assembling and self-reconfiguring modular robot systems may one day be capable of achieving varied, complex tasks. Having the abilities of coordinated self-assembly and self-reconfiguration could allow a robotic system to adapt to different or hanging environments on-the-fly. These robotic systems have the potential to exploit self-healing abilities with a reserve supply of low cost robot modules for increased system robustness. They are particularly well suited to situations in which they must adapt to tasks not known a priori, such as search and rescue applications in unstructured environments, planetary exploration and deep space exploration. Two prototype SMORES modules have been developed at the time of this post.

Hardware

Module Overall Design

[画像:SMORES showing 4 DoF per module]

Docking Connector Design

[画像:Internals of a Module showing docking key actuation]

Docking Connector Strength

Movies

SMORES – Highlights (self-assembly, self-reconfiguration, mobile modules, 4DoF, manual control, tele-operation)
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Internal Gearing
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Dock/Undock
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Docking mechanism internals
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Pan and Tilt Camera mount
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Failed docking recovery
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Publications
[SMORES.pdf]

• [PDF] J. Davey, N. Kwok, and M. Yim, “Emulating self-reconfigurable robots – design of the smores system,” in Intelligent robots and systems (iros), 2012 ieee/rsj international conference on, Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, 2012, pp. 4464-4469.
  

  @INPROCEEDINGS{JD:NK:MY:12,
  author={Davey, J. and Ngai Kwok and Yim, M.},
  booktitle={Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on},
  title={Emulating self-reconfigurable robots - design of the SMORES system},
  year={2012},
  month={October 7-12},
  address={Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal},
  pages={4464-4469},
  keywords={robots;self-adjusting systems;SMORES system;chain style reconfiguration;lattice style reconfiguration;mobile reconfiguration;selfassembling modular robot for extreme shape-shifting;selfreconfigurable robots;universal modular robot;Connectors;Gears;Lattices;Mobile communication;Robot kinematics;Wheels},
  doi={10.1109/IROS.2012.6385845},
  ISSN={2153-0858},
  pdf={http://modlabupenn.org/wp-content/uploads/SMORES.pdf},}