Combinatorial Optimization of Sensing for Rule-Based Planar Distributed Assembly

We describe a model for planar distributed assembly, in which agents move randomly and independently on a two-dimensional grid, joining square blocks together to form a desired target structure. The agents have limited capabilities, including local sensing and rule-based reactive control only, and operate without centralized coordination. We define the spatiotemporal constraints necessary for the ordered assembly of a structure and give a procedure for encoding these constraints in a rule set, such that production of the desired structure is guaranteed. Our main contribution is a stochastic optimization algorithm which is able to significantly reduce the number of environmental features that an agent must recognize to build a structure. Experiments show that our optimization algorithm outperforms existing techniques

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

[2]  Barbara Webb,et al.  Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems , 2002, Connect. Sci..

[3]  Eric Klavins,et al.  Graph grammars for self assembling robotic systems , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[4]  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).

[5]  Guang Li,et al.  A rectangular partition algorithm for planar self-assembly , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[6]  Erik Winfree,et al.  The program-size complexity of self-assembled squares (extended abstract) , 2000, STOC '00.

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

[8]  Aristides A. G. Requicha,et al.  Active self-assembly , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[9]  Robert Ghrist,et al.  Grammatical Self Assembly for Planar Tiles , 2004, 2004 International Conference on MEMS, NANO and Smart Systems (ICMENS'04).

[10]  Ashish Goel,et al.  Combinatorial optimization problems in self-assembly , 2002, STOC '02.

[11]  Ashish Goel,et al.  Running time and program size for self-assembled squares , 2001, STOC '01.