AIRS in the AIR: Modular Self-reconfigurable Robot (III) | Michael Rubenstein and Tin Lun Lam

Event: AIRS in the AIR: Modular Self-reconfigurable Robot
Organizer: Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society
Host: Prof. Tin Lun Lam, Prof. Zhenglong Sun
First Speaker: Prof. Michael Rubenstein
Topic: FireANT3D 3D non-lattice modular self-reconfigurable robot
Second Speaker: Prof. Tin Lun Lam
Topic: Bio-inspired Freeform Reconfigurable Robot
Abstract: A general-purpose robotic system that can change its configuration to achieve different capabilities is of great value to application scenarios with substantial uncertainty, such as exploration, search and rescue in hazard fields. Inspired by the great flexibility and adaptability of biological swarms such as ants and slime molds in facing dynamic environments, the modular self-reconfigurable robot is one of the promising directions for realizing general-purpose robots. The modular self-reconfigurable robots can form different shapes to achieve different capabilities by the autonomous connection and motion among simple modular robots. Due to the mechanical constraints, modular robots only provide several connecting points for other robots, which is different from the natural biological swarms that can connect anywhere with their fellows. The restricted location of connection highly limited the flexibility and increased the connection complexity of the modular self-reconfigurable robots. Is it possible to get one step closer to the capability of the biological swarms by enabling modular self-reconfigurable robots to have more freedom in forming their shape? This talk will introduce some of our recent attempts at tackling this challenge.