Ricardo Andrés Castillo Estepa

Review of Connector Docking Systems for Modular Robotic Systems

There are robots in the field of modular robotics with capabilities of self – reconfiguration. These have the ability to change their own shape at will, reordering connections with the purpose of adapting to new circumstances, new tasks or recovering from damages. In recent years, new systems have been developed to allow physically binding modules. The aim of this paper is to illustrate in a clear way, the different connection systems and the solutions that exist for coupling them in modular robots. Therefore this document is composed by the system used, important features, schemes to understand how they work and examples of robots where these systems have been implemented. As a conclusion, a number of features that should be taken into account when choosing a coupling system or designing a new one are shown.

Simulation of Motion Control for a Modular Robot of Five Degrees of Freedom

This project shows the simulation of a robotic modular system. It has one kind of module, which can couple with two more. The modules have five degrees of freedom (DOF), and can move in four different ways: independent module mode, caterpillar mode, snake mode and wheel mode. The last three kinds of movements need to have several modules coupled. Each module can move either using two pivots at its ends or by using tiny wheels that allow it to move in a direction that is perpendicular to the direction it follows when using its pivots; these gyratory elements also allow the module to rotate around one of its ends. The system controls based on sine functions.

Estrategia de Coordinación y Comunicación para Sistemas Robóticos Colaborativos

This paper presents the development and implementation of a communication and coordination strategy among multiple mobile robotic devices, so that they can work together becoming a collaborative. This strategy will enable a group of several autonomous agents (mobile robots) to exhibit cooperative and/or coordinate behaviors, so that they can work both independently to achieve local objectives, as well as collectively to achieve overall objectives, exploring or modifying its operating environment. For the development of the proposed strategy, agents will be distributed taking into consideration a decentralized command configuration, so the integrated system can adapt dynamically to internal or external disturbances that may occur. For validation of the proposed strategy it will be used heterarchical command architecture (decentralized) in order to coordinate agents or holons with associate physical resources. The strategy discussed in this work will enable a collaborative system to automatically reconfigurate itself when a failure is detected, reallocating the activities and avoiding a total system restarting.