Florian Schlachter

Symbiotic robot organisms: REPLICATOR and SYMBRION projects

Cooperation and competition among stand - alone swarm agents can increase the collective fitness of the whole system. An interesting form of collective system is demonstrated by some bacteria and fungi, which can build symbiotic organisms. Symbiotic communities can enable new functional capabilities which allow all members to survive better in their environment. In this article we show an overview of two large European projects dealing with new collective robotic systems which utilize principles derived from natural symbiosis. The paper provides also an overview of typical hardware, software and methodological challenges arose along these projects, as well as some prototypes and on-going experiments available on this stage.

Reconfigurable swarm robots produce self-assembling and self-repairing organisms

Reconfigurable robots are set to become a vital factor in the theoretical development and practical utilization of robotics. The core problem in this scientific area is steady information transfer between a swarm and its organisms and vice versa. To this end, we present a basic theoretical framework that stipulates the interoperation between the two modes. We evaluate our proposed framework by constructing 100 mobile microrobots of three different types that initiate the processes of self-reconfigurability and self-repair. The autonomous decision to self-aggregate to an organism mainly derives from the necessity to overcome existing obstructive environmental conditions, e.g. ramps or clefts. The methodological dichotomy that we have chosen to evaluate our concept was to pursue in parallel an approach based on embodied distributed cognition and an evolutionary path mainly based on artificial genomes and reproduction. In this paper, we evaluate these two different approaches in two distinct grand challenges and present the main results.

A Modular Software Framework for Heterogeneous Reconfigurable Robots

In this paper we present the Symbricator Robot API, a software framework for heterogeneous robot swarms with the ability to aggregate and build modular robotic organisms. This software framework supports different robot types and at the same time hides the complexity of the multi-processor sensor-rich robots to the user. Furthermore, it enables communication and energy sharing amongst swarming and aggregated robots. Based on the development of the Symbrion and Replicator projects, we line out the developed software framework. For application development, we offer a unified expandable software interface for all robot types in order to write swarm and organism controllers without restrictions to the actual underlying hardware

Active wheel - An autonomous modular robot

In this paper, a novel robotic platform is introduced, which is able to support other modular robots during the locomotion or self-repair process to increase efficiency of locomotion, payload and runtime. The robot is able to operate autonomous as a stand-alone robot in a swarm or aggregate into robot organisms. We outline the developmental phases of the final robot generation, including mechanics, electronics and software design.

Local Oriented Potential Fields: Self Deployment and Coordination of an Assembling Swarm of Robots

In the fields of swarm and modular robotics, one of the main challenges is to deploy and coordinate the robots in ways that are useful for solving different tasks. The aim of the research we are presenting is to create a self-organizing deployment and coordination system to improve the assembling phase of a group of robots capable of docking with each other. To achieve the presented goal a new technique, namely the “local oriented potential fields,” is combined with physicomimetics (artificial physics) and the behavioral coordination paradigm. The proposed solution offers a way to create four different types of deployments (square, line, star and tree), providing specific properties during the assembly and the solution of tasks. Simulations with NetLogo are used to prove the validity of the proposed ideas.