A Complete, Local and Parallel Reconfiguration Algorithm for Cube Style Modular Robots

We present a complete, local, and parallel reconfiguration algorithm for metamorphic robots made up of Telecubes, six degree of freedom cube shaped modules currently being developed at PARC. We show that by using 2 /spl times/ 2 /spl times/ 2 meta-modules we can achieve completeness of reconfiguration space using only local rules. Furthermore, this reconfiguration can be done in place and massively in parallel with many simultaneous module movements. Finally we present a loose quadratic upper bound on the total number of module movements required by the algorithm.

Authors

• Sergei Vassilvitskii
• Mark Yim
• John W. Suh

Keywords

• Parallel robots
• Automatic control
• Shape control
• Orbital robotics
• Upper bound
• Sorting
• Hardware
• Algorithm design and analysis
• Distributed control
• Modular Robots
• Reconfiguration Algorithm
• Local Rules
• Fine Structure
• Part Of Structure
• Individual Modules
• Global Connectivity