Robotics Modules with Realtime Adaptive Topology

Abstract

In this study, we physically built hardware modules that allow us to flexibly construct robots with various morphologies. As opposed to the existing studies of modular robotics, where the connection topology among the modules has to be hand-designed, our modules are able to adaptively modify their connection topology. The gradual self-adaptation of the inter-module connection generates a topology that allows the modules to collectively produce a coordinated behavior as one robot. The adaptive mechanism is based on a human specified target behavior, thus allowing us to assemble robots with various morphologies and tasks without having to run cost-intensive designing process. We ran several physical experiments, where robots with various morphologies are assembled from the proposed modules. We also tested the flexibility and resiliency of the proposed modules with some promising initial results.