TY - GEN
T1 - Topological representation and analysis method for multi-port and multi-orientation docking modular robots
AU - KO, Albert
AU - LAU, T. L.
AU - LAU, H. Y.K.
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - For MSR Robots to successfully configure from one configuration into another, the control system must be able to visualize the current structure of the robot, which cannot be done without appropriate information about each module's docking status. Although the type of information required to visualize the structure of a MSR robot differs with the physical design of the modules, there are essential information that are commonly required, such as docking orientation and identity of neighboring modules. This paper presents a novel multi-port and multi-orientation modular robot, and a representation method that can uniquely represent the geometric structure of a group of connected modules and to analyze the number of "reconfigurable DOF" within the structure. The proposed method uses labeled planar graphs and incidence matrices to describe the docking status of the modules within the structure, which helps to effectively encode the data in computer understandable expressions. In addition to the work in configuration analysis, an innovative mechanism for detecting the orientation of each docking port is also presented.
AB - For MSR Robots to successfully configure from one configuration into another, the control system must be able to visualize the current structure of the robot, which cannot be done without appropriate information about each module's docking status. Although the type of information required to visualize the structure of a MSR robot differs with the physical design of the modules, there are essential information that are commonly required, such as docking orientation and identity of neighboring modules. This paper presents a novel multi-port and multi-orientation modular robot, and a representation method that can uniquely represent the geometric structure of a group of connected modules and to analyze the number of "reconfigurable DOF" within the structure. The proposed method uses labeled planar graphs and incidence matrices to describe the docking status of the modules within the structure, which helps to effectively encode the data in computer understandable expressions. In addition to the work in configuration analysis, an innovative mechanism for detecting the orientation of each docking port is also presented.
KW - Graph Theory
KW - Mechatronic Design
KW - Modular Robots
KW - Self-Reconfigurable Robots
KW - Topological Representative
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=3042676791&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ROBOT.2004.1307390
DO - 10.1109/ROBOT.2004.1307390
M3 - Conference paper (refereed)
AN - SCOPUS:3042676791
SN - 0780382323
VL - 2004
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 2210
EP - 2215
BT - Proceedings : IEEE International Conference On Robotics And Automation, 2004
PB - The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
T2 - 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Y2 - 26 April 2004 through 1 May 2004
ER -