Design and Fabrication of an Auto-Reconfiguring Modular Micro Mobile Robot

This paper presents a new solution for a field-reconfigurable modular micro mobile robot. The robot design encompasses some new attributes. It is small enough that it can be used for searching in tight spaces, where humans cannot easily reach and the robots can be adapted to many situations by attaching extra modules to enhance the robot¡¦s capabilities. The robot is auto-reconfiguring, that is when the module is plugged in and the robot is restarted, it automatically recognises the new module and incorporates the module into its code. By using only the modules needed for a given situation and sharing some modules between robots using IR communication, the robots are greener because they do not have unnecessary parts to add weight and increase power consumption, resulting in reduced cost and maximised battery life.