Robotics for Future Land Warfare : Modular Self Reconfigurable Robots

The face of modern land warfare is changing rapidly. Defence organisations around the world must be constantly adjusting and improving just to maintain a comparative advantage over their opponents. Robotics is one particular area attracting growing interest amongst a number of countries. Most of their work is following along the conventional lines of designing specialised robots to perform specific tasks. Such robots work tend not to be multi-purpose and their performance suffers when forced to deal with different environments. This paper proposes using a more versatile solution: modular self-reconfigurable robots. These are capable of adapting their very structure to match the task and environment at hand. Their extreme modular construction enables easy, in-the-field diagnosis and repair by untrained users. The massive redundancy inherent in such systems allows a remarkably sustained performance in the face of partial damage. These three key benefits: flexibility, maintainability and robustness are clearly attributes which are useful to armed forces around the world. However Australia, with its unique defence requirements (due to geography, size of active forces and types of deployment), is particularly in a position to enjoy the important strategic benefits. This paper discusses some of the benefits of such modular systems and one particular experimental implementation: PolyBot.

[1]  Craig Eldershaw,et al.  Heuristic algorithms for motion planning , 2001 .

[2]  Marsette Vona,et al.  Self-reconfiguration planning with compressible unit modules , 1999, Proceedings 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.99CH36288C).

[3]  Ying Zhang,et al.  Software architecture for modular self-reconfigurable robots , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[4]  Mark Yim,et al.  Motion planning of legged vehicles in an unstructured environment , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[5]  Arancha Casal,et al.  Connectivity planning for closed-chain reconfiguration , 2000, SPIE Optics East.

[6]  Mark H. Yim,et al.  Evolution of PolyBot: A Modular Reconfigurable Robot , 2002 .

[7]  Craig D. McGray,et al.  The self-reconfiguring robotic molecule: design and control algorithms , 1998 .

[8]  Mark H. Yim,et al.  Modular Reconfigurable Robots, An Approach To Urban Search and Rescue , 2002 .

[9]  Mark Vim,et al.  Climbing with Snake-Like Robots , 2001 .

[10]  Ying Zhang,et al.  Closed-chain motion with large mechanical advantage , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[11]  H. Kurokawa,et al.  Self-assembling machine , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[12]  Arancha Casal,et al.  Self-reconfiguration planning for a class of modular robots , 1999, Optics East.

[13]  Gregory S. Chirikjian,et al.  Useful metrics for modular robot motion planning , 1997, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[14]  Ying Zhang,et al.  Six Degree of Freedom Sensing for Docking Using IR LED Emitters and Receivers , 2000, ISER.

[15]  Eiichi Yoshida,et al.  A 3-D self-reconfigurable structure , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146).

[16]  Mark Yim,et al.  PolyBot: a modular reconfigurable robot , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).