04-03-2013, 04:49 PM
Swarm-Bot: A New Distributed Robotic Concept
[attachment=52567]
Abstract.
The swarm intelligence paradigm has proven to have very interesting properties such as robustness,
flexibility and ability to solve complex problems exploiting parallelism and self-organization. Several robotics
implementations of this paradigm confirm that these properties can be exploited for the control of a population of
physically independent mobile robots.
The work presented here introduces a new robotic concept called swarm-bot in which the collective interaction
exploited by the swarm intelligence mechanism goes beyond the control layer and is extended to the physical level.
This implies the addition of new mechanical functionalities on the single robot, together with new electronics and
software to manage it. These new functionalities, even if not directly related to mobility and navigation, allow to
address complex mobile robotics problems, such as extreme all-terrain exploration.
Introduction
Applications like semi-automatic space exploration
(Visentin et al., 2001), rescue (Casper et al., 2000),
or underwater exploration (Ayers et al., 1998) need robust
and flexible robotic systems. Most of these applications
require systems combining the following three
basic characteristics:
Robustness. Unstable, very complex or extreme environments
require robustness to severe hardware failures.
Versatility. The complexity of the task needs versatility
in hardware shape and functionality. The robot has
to perform well in very different terrains and in very
different tasks such as displacement, exploration or
object transportation.
All terrain navigation. Complex unstructured environments
such as distant planets or catastrophic environments
need a very flexible and efficient all-terrain
navigation.
Concept and Related Work
The objective of theSWARM-BOTS project is to study
a novel approach to the design, hardware implementation,
test, and use of a self-assembling, self-organizing,
metamorphic robotic system called swarm-bot. This
approach finds its theoretical roots in recent studies
in the field of swarm intelligence, that is, in studies
exploiting the self-organizing and self-assembling capabilities
shown by social insects and by some other
animal societies (Bonabeau et al., 1999).
An important part of the project consists in the physical
construction of at least one swarm-bot, that is, a selfassembling
and self-organizing robot colony composed
of a number (30–35) of smaller devices, called s-bots
(Fig. 1). Each s-bot is a fully autonomous mobile robot
capable of performing basic tasks such as autonomous
navigation, perception of the environment and grasping
of objects.
Robustness to Hardware Failures
The problem of robustness to physical damages plays
a crucial role in unstructured and unstable environments,
such as those found in post-catastrophic situations
or space exploration. Large obstacles, holes in
the ground, unstable hindrance, fire, explosions, water,
chemicals or other dangerous agents can cause damages
to a robotic system. In order to ensure the most
efficient task execution, a system has to be fault tolerant
and ensure operation even if a large part of it, such
as half of the hardware, is lost
State of the Art
A widely used technique to
overcome hardware failures is redundancy. Most of the
literature on fault tolerant systems deals with minor
failures that can be corrected with a robust control or
with systems which have intrinsic redundancy, like distributed
communication networks. A typical example
exploiting intrinsic redundancy is the failure of a node
in a communication network. In this case the system,
if well controlled, can continue to operate using the
remaining working parts. To face this type of partial
failure, which is the most common in engineering systems,
the main design effort has to be placed in the
control part of the system (Stengel, 1991). An efficient
fault tolerant control is based on failure detection and
correction.
Hardware Implementation
This section illustrates the feasibility of the swarmbot
concept, showing how it has been implemented
and briefly summarizing some preliminary results. The
discussion presents an overview of the mechanical
(Section 3.1), electronic (Section 3.2), and software
(Section 3.3) implementations of the first prototype.
[attachment=52567]
Abstract.
The swarm intelligence paradigm has proven to have very interesting properties such as robustness,
flexibility and ability to solve complex problems exploiting parallelism and self-organization. Several robotics
implementations of this paradigm confirm that these properties can be exploited for the control of a population of
physically independent mobile robots.
The work presented here introduces a new robotic concept called swarm-bot in which the collective interaction
exploited by the swarm intelligence mechanism goes beyond the control layer and is extended to the physical level.
This implies the addition of new mechanical functionalities on the single robot, together with new electronics and
software to manage it. These new functionalities, even if not directly related to mobility and navigation, allow to
address complex mobile robotics problems, such as extreme all-terrain exploration.
Introduction
Applications like semi-automatic space exploration
(Visentin et al., 2001), rescue (Casper et al., 2000),
or underwater exploration (Ayers et al., 1998) need robust
and flexible robotic systems. Most of these applications
require systems combining the following three
basic characteristics:
Robustness. Unstable, very complex or extreme environments
require robustness to severe hardware failures.
Versatility. The complexity of the task needs versatility
in hardware shape and functionality. The robot has
to perform well in very different terrains and in very
different tasks such as displacement, exploration or
object transportation.
All terrain navigation. Complex unstructured environments
such as distant planets or catastrophic environments
need a very flexible and efficient all-terrain
navigation.
Concept and Related Work
The objective of theSWARM-BOTS project is to study
a novel approach to the design, hardware implementation,
test, and use of a self-assembling, self-organizing,
metamorphic robotic system called swarm-bot. This
approach finds its theoretical roots in recent studies
in the field of swarm intelligence, that is, in studies
exploiting the self-organizing and self-assembling capabilities
shown by social insects and by some other
animal societies (Bonabeau et al., 1999).
An important part of the project consists in the physical
construction of at least one swarm-bot, that is, a selfassembling
and self-organizing robot colony composed
of a number (30–35) of smaller devices, called s-bots
(Fig. 1). Each s-bot is a fully autonomous mobile robot
capable of performing basic tasks such as autonomous
navigation, perception of the environment and grasping
of objects.
Robustness to Hardware Failures
The problem of robustness to physical damages plays
a crucial role in unstructured and unstable environments,
such as those found in post-catastrophic situations
or space exploration. Large obstacles, holes in
the ground, unstable hindrance, fire, explosions, water,
chemicals or other dangerous agents can cause damages
to a robotic system. In order to ensure the most
efficient task execution, a system has to be fault tolerant
and ensure operation even if a large part of it, such
as half of the hardware, is lost
State of the Art
A widely used technique to
overcome hardware failures is redundancy. Most of the
literature on fault tolerant systems deals with minor
failures that can be corrected with a robust control or
with systems which have intrinsic redundancy, like distributed
communication networks. A typical example
exploiting intrinsic redundancy is the failure of a node
in a communication network. In this case the system,
if well controlled, can continue to operate using the
remaining working parts. To face this type of partial
failure, which is the most common in engineering systems,
the main design effort has to be placed in the
control part of the system (Stengel, 1991). An efficient
fault tolerant control is based on failure detection and
correction.
Hardware Implementation
This section illustrates the feasibility of the swarmbot
concept, showing how it has been implemented
and briefly summarizing some preliminary results. The
discussion presents an overview of the mechanical
(Section 3.1), electronic (Section 3.2), and software
(Section 3.3) implementations of the first prototype.