一种新的自组装模块化群体机器人——对接机构设计与自组装控制

A Novel Self-assembly Modular Swarm Robot:Docking Mechanism Design and Self-assembly Control

基于新型自组装模块化群体机器人Sambot,研究并实现了多个机器人之间的自主对接与自组装控制.首先,提出了一种由对接卡扣与对接卡槽组成的新型对接机构,它可以使多个Sambot在一定对接偏差范围内,从前、后、左、右4个方向同时进行对接;其次,采用基于行为的控制方法,仅依赖机器人自身红外传感器的局部感知和通信能力,实现了对接机器人寻找目标、导航和自主对接等自组装行为;最后,成功完成了两个Sambot的自主对接与自组装控制实验.实验结果表明,本文提出的自组装控制方法可以直接扩展到多个Sambot的情形,来构建任意构型的集合体机器人.

Based on the Sambot （self-assembly modular swarm robot）, the autonomous docking and self-assembly among multiple robots are studied and realized. First of all, a novel docking mechanism composed of a pair of active docking hooks and four docking grooves is proposed, which can dock a Sambot with other Sambots from four directions （front, back, left and fight） within a certain range of misalignment. Second, the behavior based control method is adopted, and the self- assembly behaviors of the docking Sambot are accomplished by means of limited perception and local communication of its own infrared sensors, including the Search_goal, Navigation, Autonomous Docking behaviors. Finally, the experiments of autonomous docking and self-assembly are conducted with two Sambots. The experimental results show that the self- assembly control algorithms can be applied directly to the case of multiple Sambots to form an ensemble robot with arbitrary configurations.