Motion Generation for a Modular Robot

We discuss motion generation of a homogeneous modular robot called a Modular Transformer (M-TRAN). Modules are designed to be self-reconfigurable so a collection of modules can transform itself into a robotic structure. The motion generation of the self-reconfigurable robot presents a computationally difficult problem due to the many combinatorial possibilities for the module configuration, even though the module itself is simple, with 2 degrees of freedom. We describe a motion generation for a class of multimodule structures based on a motion planner and a motion scheduler. The motion planner has 2 layers, with a global planner to plan overall movement of the cluster and a local planner to determine locally coordinated module motions, called motion schemes. After motion is generated as a sequence of single motion schemes, the motion scheduler processes the output plan to allow parallel motions to improve efficiency. The effectiveness of the motion generator is verified through a multiple-module simulation.