Distributed robotics special issue

T he purpose of the special issue is to describe recent developments in the area of microrobots—small in size, at most a few centimeters, in all three dimensions—working alone or as a member of a team with distributed intelligence and/or sensing capable of adapting to various tasks and environments. Robots that share intelligence and sensory information are capable of carrying out a task that cannot be handled by a single microrobot because of limited resources on board. By introducing modularity and reconfigurability, some of these robots are also capable of combining to form a large variety of shapes so that they can travel easily on different terrains. Robots of this type are useful in applications such as fire fighting, remote surveillance, inspection of difficult to access workplaces, and earthquake search and rescue, to name a few. The articles explore issues such as energy-efficient robot designs, distributed control and sensing architectures, algorithms for a group behavior, and the concept of modularity and reconfigurability. " Climbing the Walls, " by Tummala, et al., describes two underactuated wall-climbing robots that use specially instrumented suction feet. This innovative design of using fewer actuators needed without sacrificing mobility or functionality contributes to their small size and weight. Birch, et at., get their inspiration to design " Cricket-Based Robots " by studying the locomotory behavior of the cricket. This robot uses legs for propulsion and support of the rear half of the body and a pair of wheels for supporting the front half. Smaller robots are usually handicapped by size and power to accomplish some major task. However, a team of robots designed with specialized abilities can be coordinated to accomplish a major task. In this case, a team of collaborating robots completes tasks, rather than a single robot. " Millibots, " by Navarro-Serment, et al., and " Sharing Control , " by Rybski, et al., explore this concept in their articles. " Walk on the Wild Side, " by Yim, et al., and " Get Back in Shape! " by Yoshida, et al., incorporate the concept of modular reconfigurability. Modular recon-figurable robots with many modules have the ability to form a large variety of shapes. These robots can reconfigure themselves from a power-efficient, fast gait, like a rolling track over a flat terrain in an earthquake search and rescue application, to a snake-like gait to slither through tight spots or crawl through pipes. Finally, we …