Distributed construction by mobile robots with enhanced building blocks

We describe a system in which autonomous robots assemble two-dimensional structures out of square building blocks. A fixed set of local control rules is sufficient for a group of robots to collectively build arbitrary solid structures. We present and compare four versions in which blocks are (1) inert and indistinguishable, (2) uniquely labeled, (3) able to be relabeled by robots, (4) capable of some computation and local communication. Added block capabilities increase the availability of nonlocal structural knowledge, thereby increasing robustness and significantly speeding construction. In this way we extend the principle of stigmergy (storing information in the environment) used by social insects, by increasing the capabilities of the blocks that represent that environmental information. Finally, we describe hardware experiments using a prototype capable of building arbitrary solid 2-D structures

[1]  Yuzuru Terada,et al.  Automatic assembly system for a large-scale modular structure - hardware design of module and assembler robot , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[2]  Daniela Rus,et al.  Generic distributed assembly and repair algorithms for self-reconfiguring robots , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[3]  G. Bekey,et al.  Automated Construction Using Contour Crafting -- Applications on Earth and Beyond , 2002 .

[4]  Gaurav S. Sukhatme,et al.  Collective construction with multiple robots , 2002, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[5]  Radhika Nagpal,et al.  Self-Reconfiguration Using Directed Growth , 2004, DARS.

[6]  Maja J. Mataric,et al.  From local to global behavior in intelligent self-assembly , 2003, 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.03CH37422).

[7]  G Theraulaz,et al.  Coordination in Distributed Building , 1995, Science.

[8]  Ronald C. Arkin,et al.  An Behavior-based Robotics , 1998 .

[9]  Radhika Nagpal,et al.  Building Patterned Structures with Robot Swarms , 2005, IJCAI.

[10]  Robert Szewczyk,et al.  System architecture directions for networked sensors , 2000, ASPLOS IX.

[11]  Ying Zhang,et al.  Robotics: modular robots , 2002 .

[12]  George A. Bekey,et al.  On autonomous robots , 1998, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[13]  Wei-Min Shen,et al.  A system for in-space assembly , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[14]  Hod Lipson,et al.  Three Dimensional Stochastic Reconfiguration of Modular Robots , 2005, Robotics: Science and Systems.

[15]  Hong Zhang,et al.  Blind bulldozing: multiple robot nest construction , 2003, Proceedings 2003 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003) (Cat. No.03CH37453).

[16]  Maja J. Mataric,et al.  Automatic synthesis of communication-based coordinated multi-robot systems , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).