TY - GEN
T1 - Scalable self-assembly and self-repair in a collective of robots
AU - Rubenstein, Michael
AU - Shen, Wei Min
PY - 2009/12/11
Y1 - 2009/12/11
N2 - A collective of robots can together complete a task that is beyond the capabilities of any of its individual robots. One property of a robotic collective that allows it to complete such a task is the shape of the collective. In this paper, we present a distributed control method, called DASH, to enable a collective of robots to robustly and consistently form and maintain a pre-defined shape. This control method allows the shape that is formed to be at a scale proportional to the number of robots in the collective. If this collective shape is damaged through the un-controlled movement, removal, or addition of some members of the collective, the existing members will recover the desired shape, proportional to the new number of robots in the collective. We also analyze this control method in terms of class of acceptable shapes and discuss the convergence to the desired shape.
AB - A collective of robots can together complete a task that is beyond the capabilities of any of its individual robots. One property of a robotic collective that allows it to complete such a task is the shape of the collective. In this paper, we present a distributed control method, called DASH, to enable a collective of robots to robustly and consistently form and maintain a pre-defined shape. This control method allows the shape that is formed to be at a scale proportional to the number of robots in the collective. If this collective shape is damaged through the un-controlled movement, removal, or addition of some members of the collective, the existing members will recover the desired shape, proportional to the new number of robots in the collective. We also analyze this control method in terms of class of acceptable shapes and discuss the convergence to the desired shape.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=76249098583&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1109/IROS.2009.5354716
DO - 10.1109/IROS.2009.5354716
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:76249098583
SN - 9781424438044
T3 - 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2009
SP - 1484
EP - 1489
BT - 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2009
T2 - 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2009
Y2 - 11 October 2009 through 15 October 2009
ER -