TY - GEN
T1 - FireAnt
T2 - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2018
AU - Swissler, Petras
AU - Rubenstein, Michael
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 IEEE.
PY - 2018/9/10
Y1 - 2018/9/10
N2 - Nature offers many examples of organisms coming together to form self-assembling structures. The attachment methods these organisms employ allow them to grab onto others' bodies, often without need for specific alignment or orientation, an ability absent from most existing robotic self-assembling structures, which require complicated sensing and specific alignment. This paper presents FireAnt, a modular 2D robot that demonstrates full-body continuous docks, an attachment mechanism able to attach anywhere onto other robots at any orientation, eliminating the need for alignment mechanisms and complex sensors. Such docks allow FireAnt to climb over copies of itself, something critical to self-assembling structures. This paper first discusses the design of FireAnt before presenting test results that show the strength and reliability of the continuous docks and demonstrate FireAnt's ability to traverse an environment consisting of inert FireAnt robots. The work presented in this paper provides a docking mechanism that can minimize the mechanical complexity of modular robots and will allow the creation of swarms of rigid and adaptable self-assembling structures.
AB - Nature offers many examples of organisms coming together to form self-assembling structures. The attachment methods these organisms employ allow them to grab onto others' bodies, often without need for specific alignment or orientation, an ability absent from most existing robotic self-assembling structures, which require complicated sensing and specific alignment. This paper presents FireAnt, a modular 2D robot that demonstrates full-body continuous docks, an attachment mechanism able to attach anywhere onto other robots at any orientation, eliminating the need for alignment mechanisms and complex sensors. Such docks allow FireAnt to climb over copies of itself, something critical to self-assembling structures. This paper first discusses the design of FireAnt before presenting test results that show the strength and reliability of the continuous docks and demonstrate FireAnt's ability to traverse an environment consisting of inert FireAnt robots. The work presented in this paper provides a docking mechanism that can minimize the mechanical complexity of modular robots and will allow the creation of swarms of rigid and adaptable self-assembling structures.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063145268&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85063145268&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2018.8463146
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2018.8463146
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85063145268
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 6812
EP - 6817
BT - 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2018
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 21 May 2018 through 25 May 2018
ER -