Reconfiguration Method for a Distributed Mechanical System

A novel design method for a mechanical system is proposed and a prototype model of the system is shown in this paper. Conventional mechanical systems are composed of various parts which are passive. In the new scheme, they are made with only one kind of active and intelligent units. The prototype unit of this kind is called “fractum,” which has actuators, sensors and information processing functions. The system has completely decentralized structure, and there is no concentrated part. These units are the same and have equivalent capacity so that any of them can replace any unit. The knowledge about the whole system is embedded in every unit and this enables the group of these units to organize and to repair the whole system by themselves. The algorithms for local reconfiguration, self-assembly and self-repair are designed and tested by computer simulations and also the hardware experiments are underway.