Molecubes Extended : Diversifying Capabilities of Open-Source Modular Robotics

This paper presents an open hardware and software platform for modular robotics (Molecubes). The goal of this project is to share the practice of design and construction of modular robotic systems with an emphasis on an expandable, open-architecture system made of standard components at reasonable costs. We present several different types of active modules including a controller, actuated joint, gripper, wheel, camera, and a number of passive modules.We then demonstrate the use of evolutionary search to rapidly-design different types of robots. The designs of Molecubes and the interface software are freely distributed through a dedicated user-group website at http://www.molecubes.org.

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