Abstract
We present the design of a new structural extension for the e-puck mobile robot. The extension may be used to transform what is a swarm robotics platform into a self-reconfigurable modular robotic system. As a proof of concept, we present an algorithm for controlling the collective locomotion of a group of e-pucks that are equipped with the extension. Our approach proves itself to be an effective method of coordinating the movement of a group of physically connected e-pucks. Furthermore, the system shows robustness in its ability to self-reconfigure and self-assemble following a disruption which alters the group’s structure.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cianci, C.M., Raemy, X., Pugh, J., Martinoli, A.: Communication in a Swarm of Miniature Robots: The e-Puck as an Educational Tool for Swarm Robotics. In: Şahin, E., Spears, W.M., Winfield, A.F.T. (eds.) SAB 2006 Ws 2007. LNCS, vol. 4433, pp. 103–115. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
English, S., Gough, J., Johnson, A., Spanton, R., Sun, J.: Formica (2012), http://formica.srobo.org
GCtronic: Elisa 3 (2012), http://www.gctronic.com/doc/index.php/Elisa_3
Gilpin, K., Kotay, K., Rus, D., Vasilescu, I.: Miche: Modular shape formation by self-disassembly. Int. J. Rob. Res. 27, 345–372 (2008)
Gilpin, K., Rus, D.: Self-disassembling robot pebbles: New results and ideas for self-assembly of 3d structures. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Workshop “Modular Robots: The State of the Art”, pp. 94–99 (2010)
Groß, R., Bonani, M., Mondada, F., Dorigo, M.: Autonomous self-assembly in swarm-bots. IEEE Transactions on Robotics 22(6), 1115–1130 (2006)
Gutierrez, A., Campo, A., Dorigo, M., Donate, J., Monasterio-Huelin, F., Magdalena, L.: Open e-puck range & bearing miniaturized board for local communication in swarm robotics. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2009, pp. 3111–3116 (May 2009)
Gutiérrez, Á., Tuci, E., Campo, A.: Evolution of neuro-controllers for robots alignment using local communication. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 6(1), 25–34 (2009)
K-Team Corporation: K-Team Mobile Robotics (2012), http://www.k-team.com
Kernbach, S., Scholz, O., Harada, K., Popesku, S., Liedke, J., Raja, H., Liu, W., Caparrelli, F., Jemai, J., Havlik, J., Meister, E., Levi, P.: Multi-Robot Organisms: State of the Art. In: ICRA10, Workshop on “Modular Robots: State of the Art”, Anchorage, pp. 1–10 (2010)
Kernbach, S.: Jasmine swarm robot platform (2012), http://www.swarmrobot.org
Liu, W., Winfield, A.F.: Open-hardware e-puck linux extension board for experimental swarm robotics research. Microprocessors and Microsystems 35(1), 60–67 (2011)
Rubenstein, M., Hoff, N., Nagpal, R.: Kilobot: A low cost scalable robot system for collective behaviors. Tech. Rep. TR-06-11, Harvard University (June 2011), ftp://ftp.deas.harvard.edu/techreports/tr-06-11.pdf
Mondada, F., Bonani, M., Raemy, X., Pugh, J., Cianci, C., Klaptocz, A., Magnenat, S., Christophe Zufferey, J., Floreano, D., Martinoli, A.: The e-puck, a robot designed for education in engineering. In: Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions, pp. 59–65 (2009)
Mondada, F., Pettinaro, G.C., Guignard, A., Kwee, I.W., Floreano, D., Deneubourg, J.L., Nolfi, S., Gambardella, L.M., Dorigo, M.: Swarm-bot: A new distributed robotic concept. Autonomous Robots 17, 193–221 (2004)
O’Grady, R., Pinciroli, C., Groß, R., Christensen, A.L., Mondada, F., Bonani, M., Dorigo, M.: Swarm-Bots to the Rescue. In: Kampis, G. (ed.) ECAL 2009, Part I. LNCS, vol. 5777, pp. 165–172. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Şahin, E., Spears, W.: Swarm Robotics: SAB 2004 International Workshop, Santa Monica, CA, USA, July 17 (2004); revised selected papers. LNCS. Springer (2005)
Wei, H., Cai, Y., Li, H., Li, D., Wang, T.: Sambot: A self-assembly modular robot for swarm robot. In: 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 66–71 (2010)
Yim, M., Shen, W.M., Salemi, B., Rus, D., Moll, M., Lipson, H., Klavins, E., Chirikjian, G.: Modular self-reconfigurable robot systems [grand challenges of robotics]. IEEE, Robotics Automation Magazine 14(1), 43–52 (2007)
Yim, M., Shirmohammadi, B., Sastra, J., Park, M., Dugan, M., Taylor, C.: Towards robotic self-reassembly after explosion. In: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2007, pp. 2767–2772 (2007)
Zykov, V., Chan, A., Lipson, H.: Molecubes: An open-source modular robotics kit. In: IROS 2007 Self-Reconfigurable Robotics Workshop (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Murray, L., Timmis, J., Tyrrell, A. (2012). Self-reconfigurable Modular e-pucks. In: Dorigo, M., et al. Swarm Intelligence. ANTS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7461. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32650-9_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32650-9_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32649-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32650-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)