Bat Simulation Results
Lessoned learned
▪ The bat’s ear shape in combination with the frequency of its scream determines the direction in which it is listening
▪ Morphing Production Lines
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D. Christensen, D. Brandt, University of Southern Denmark
Other Self-Reconfigurable Robots
M-TRAN, Distributed System Design Research Group, Intelligent Systems Institute, AIST
CONRO, Polymorphic Robotics Lab, Information Sciences Institute, USC
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The ATRON robot, D. Brandt and D. Christensen, University of Southern Denmark
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USC’s ISI
Robust vs Fragile
▪ Difficult to detect if a module has failed ▪ Due to motion constraints it is difficult to eject the failed
Task-Optimized vs Stereotypical Tasks
▪ Task-optimized
▪ Body
▪ Task-optimized
Example: Body-Brain in Nature
▪ Why do bat ears have different shapes?
Example and graphics provided by Ralf Müller (CIRCE EU project, University of Southern Denmark)
▪ Prototyping mechanics and electronics is
▪ Time-consuming ▪ Expensive ▪ Requires skilled people
▪ A task-optimized body is rarely versatile ▪ Something else is needed..
▪ Modular robots may make it easier to find a balance between body and brain
Shape-Changing Modular Robots
▪ If robots can change shape autonomously
▪ Continually task-optimizing body ▪ Versatility ▪ Robustness (impact and self-repair) ▪ Cheap?
▪ Scalability ▪ Robustness
The State of Self-Reconfigurable Robots
▪ Vision
▪ Versatile ▪ Robust ▪ Cheap ▪ Task-Optimized
▪ Reality?
▪ Useless ▪ Fragile ▪ Expensive ▪ Stereotypical tasks
Versatile vs useless
▪ In practice motion constraints make it difficult to change shape
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Brain-Body Relationship in Robotics
▪ Brain (controller)
▪ Task-optimized
▪ Body (hardware)
▪ General-purpose*
*) to a large extend
Body-Brain in Nature
▪ Brain
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Cognitive Robot
Kasper Stoy The Maersk McKinney Moller Institute
University of Southern Denmark
kaspers@mmmi.sdu.dk
Overview
▪ The body-brain relationship in cognition ▪ Modular robots as cognitive bodies ▪ Self-reconfigurable robots ▪ Deformable modular robots ▪ Hierarchical robots ▪ Conclusion
Self-Reconfigurable Robots
Self-Reconfigurable Robots
▪ Modular robots that can change shape by automatically rearranging the way modules are connected
Bat Ears
1. Bat ears cut off and digitized 2. Interaction between sound waves
and ear analyzed in simulation 3. Robot bat built to verify and use
results
module ▪ Due to weakness of modules it may not be possible to eject
the failed module at all
Cheap vs Expensive
▪ ATRON $2000 ▪ MTRAN $3500 ▪ ….
Real Tasks vs Stereotypical Tasks
▪ The physical structure of the bats ear does some “processing” for its brain
▪ The body of the bat aids cognition
Body-Brain in Robots
▪ We have a choice of where to implement intelligence
M-TRAN, AIST
Versatile vs useless
Start
D. Brandt, University of Southern Denmark
Goal
Versatile vs useless
▪ Too weak to interact with the world
▪ The ATRON and the M-TRAN robots can only lift in the order of a few modules
Brain
Body
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Asimov, Honda
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Versatile vs Useless
▪ A self-reconfigurable robot can change into any shape needed for the task
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Software Challenge
▪ Control a swarm robot where
▪ Individual modules are physically coupled ▪ The connection topology is dynamic
▪ Preferable control should be distributed to allow
▪ Connection mechanisms ▪ Infra-red communication (with neighbours) ▪ Actuation (rotate one half sphere with respect to the other) ▪ Onboard batteries ▪ Processing power ▪ short-range sensors (infra-red) ▪ ...