A unit-compressible modular robotic system and its self-configuration strategy using meta-module

- A unit-compressible modular robot named as M-Lattice is presented.
- A special motion mode is used to reduce the local constraints in modular robotic system.
- The kinematics analysis of M-Lattice modular robot is carried out.
- A self-configuration strategy using meta-module is proposed to reduce the global constraints.
- Simulations show the proposed strategy has a fine performance in scalability and robustness.

Many modular robots can be configured together to constitute a system. However, it is yet difficult to accomplish the configuration tasks by modules themselves since there are many constraints in a system. Introducing the meta-module into control strategy may realize the self-configuration by reducing constraints. Based on this idea, this paper presents a novel self-configuration strategy for a unit-compressible modular robotic system. First, a hardware system called M-Lattice that allows to construct a planar hexagonal lattice of robots is introduced. By using a special motion mode to move modules, this system is able to reduce the local constraints. A kinematics analysis and two prototype robots are presented to demonstrate this ability. Then, a novel self-configuration strategy based on the concept of meta-module is proposed. The meta-module is a small group of basic modules that work cooperatively as one intelligent unit. Every meta-module can self-configure in the system by itself and the global constraints are effectively reduced at the same time. The overall performance of the proposed strategy is evaluated with simulations and the simulation results show that it has a fine performance in scalability as well as robustness.