SWARMORPH: Morphology Control with a Swarm of Self-Assembling Robots

There are several examples of robotic systems in which mobile autonomous robots self-assemble into a larger connected robotic entity. The self-assembled entity can tackle tasks that are beyond the capabilities of the individual constituent robots. However, existing systems are for the most part incapable of forming different, specific morphologies. This restricts the adaptability of such systems, since certain tasks can be more efficiently carried out by self-assembled entities with specialised morphologies. An entity with an elongated structure, for example, can cross wide holes, whereas a more dense structure provides more stability for rough terrain navigation. SWARMORPH is a novel distributed mechanism that allows autonomous mobile robots to self-assemble into specific morphologies. Global morphologies are ‘grown’ using strictly local visual perception only. Robots that are part of the connected entity indicate where new robots should attach in order to extend the local structure appropriately. We demonstrate the efficacy of the mechanism by letting groups of 7 real robots self-assemble into different patterns (line, star, arrow, and rectangle).