A membrane computing framework for self-reconfigurable robots

Self-reconfigurable robots are built by modules which can move in relationship to each other, which allows the robot to change its physical form. Finding a sequence of module moves that reconfigures the robot from the initial configuration to the goal configuration is a hard task and many control al...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: Bie, Dongyang, Gutiérrez Naranjo, Miguel Ángel, Zhao, Jie, Zhu, Yanhe
Format: article
Status:Versión enviada para evaluación y publicación
Publication Date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repository:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/106741
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/106741
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-018-9702-1
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Modular robots
Membrane Computing
Distributed control
Self-reconfiguration
Cellular automata
P systems
Description
Summary:Self-reconfigurable robots are built by modules which can move in relationship to each other, which allows the robot to change its physical form. Finding a sequence of module moves that reconfigures the robot from the initial configuration to the goal configuration is a hard task and many control algorithms have been proposed. In this paper, we present a novel method which combines a cluster-flow locomotion based on cellular automata together with a decentralized local representation of the spatial geometry based on membrane computing ideas. This new approach has been tested with computer simulations and real-world experiments performed with modular self-reconfigurable robots and represents a new point of view with respect other control methods found in the literature.