一个简单的方法来控制运动中的自重构机器人-机械电子毕业设计外文翻译英文原文A simple approach to the control of locomotion in self-reconfigurable robotsK Sty a W-M Shen b PM Will bThe Adaptronics Group The Maersk Institute University of Southern Denmark Campusvej 55 DK-5230 Odense M Denmark USC Information Sciences Institute and Computer Science Department 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey CA 90292 USA AbstractIn this paper we present role-based control which is a general bottom-up approach to the control of locomotion in self-reconfigurable robots We use role-based control to implement a caterpillar a sidewinder and a rolling track gait in the CONRO self-reconfigurable robot consisting of eight modules Based on our experiments and discussion we con-clude that control systems based on role-based control are minimal robust to communication errors and robust to recon-figuration2003 Elsevier Science BV All rights reservedKeywords Self-reconfigurable robots Locomotion Role-based control1 IntroductionReconfigurable robots are robots made from a pos-sibly large number of independent modules connected to form a robot If the modules from which the re-configurable robot is built are able to connect and disconnect without human intervention the robot is a self-reconfigurable robot Refer to Fig 1 for an exam-ple of a module of a self-reconfigurable robot or refer to one of the other physical realized systems described in 781015172123 Several potential advantages of self-reconfigurable robots over traditional robots have been pointed out in literatureVersatility The modules can be combined in differ-ent ways making the same robotic system able to perform a wide range of tasks Adaptability While the self-reconfigurable robot performs its task it can change its physical shape to adapt to changes in the environment Robustness Self-reconfigurable robots consist of many identical modules and therefore if a module fails it can be replaced by another Cheap production When the final design for the basic module has been obtained it can be mass pro-duced Therefore the cost of the individual module can be kept relatively low in spite of its complexity Self-reconfigurable robots can solve the same tasks as traditional robots but as Yim et al 23 point out in applications where the task and environment are given a priori it is often cheaper to build a special purpose robot Therefore applications best suited for self-reconfigurable robots are applications where some leverage can be gained from the special abilities of self-reconfigurable robots The versatility of theseFig 1 A CONRO module The three male connectors are located in the lower right corner The female connector is partly hidden from view in the upper left cornerrobots make them suitable in scenarios where the robots have to handle a range of tasks The robots can also handle tasks in unknown or dynamic environ-ments because they are able to adapt to these envi-ronments In tasks where robustness is of importance it might be desirable to use self-reconfigurable robots Even though real applications for self-reconfigurable robots still are to be seen a number of applications have been envisioned 1723 fire fighting search and rescue after an earthquake battlefield reconnais-sance planetary exploration undersea mining and space structure building Other possible applications include entertainment and service roboticsThe potential of self-reconfigurable robots can be realized if several challenges in terms of hardware and software can be met In this work we focus on one of the challenges in software how do we make a large number of connected modules perform a coor-dinated global behavior Specifically we address howto design algorithms that will make it possible for self-reconfigurable robots to locomote efficiently In order for a locomotion algorithm to be useful it has to preserve the special properties of these robots From the advantages and applications mentioned above we can extract a number of guidelines for the design of such a control algorithm The algorithm should be dis-tributed to avoid having a single point of failure Also the performance of the algorithm should scale with an increased number of modules It has to be robust to re-configuration because reconfiguration is a fundamen-tal capability of self-reconfigurable robots Finally it is desirable to have homogeneous software running on all the modules because it makes it possible for any module to take over if another one failsIt is an open question if a top-down or a bottom-up approach gives the best result We find that it is diffi-cult to design the system at the global level and then later try to make an implementation at the local levelbecause often properties of the hardware are ignored and a slow robotic system might be the result There-fore we use a bottom-up approach where the single module is the basic unit of design That is we move from a global design perspective to a bottom-up one where the important design element is