Research On 3D Simulator And Special Modules For Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robot

Modular self-reconfigurable robot is composed of many connected modules with a certain locomotion and sense ability, and each module has claws or holes used for connection between modules. Thus connection and disconnection between modules can make the robot configuration change; a locomotion can be achieved by driving the motors inside modules coordinately. Ubot system consists of a universal-type joint modules is a modular self-reconfigurable robot system .There are two kinds of modules:active module and passive module. Active module has hooks but passive module not.Reconfiguration and locomotion can be achieved by interoperating and driving various modules.Some locomotion in typical configurations like snake-shape, worm-shape,feet-shape and cross-shape etc have been realized.Robot Motion planning and dynamics simulation are operated inPC using conventional software about robotics,but it's hard and reduplicative because Ubot's various configuration.In this paper,we developd a three-dimensional simulation and control platform which integrated robot motion planning, dynamic simulation and the underlying control.Using the simulator we can quickly build a robot configuration, generate motion control commands interactively ,and pass the commands to virtual robot and actual robot we can watch the dynamics simulation results and actual robot running.Two special modules compatible with the original system are proposed : the wheel module and sensor module. the wheel state(active wheel out, scroll wheel out or both in cube) of the wheel module can be switched; Sensor module integrated IR obstacle avoidance sensor, cceleration sensor and wireless camera;They improve the Ubot's ability to detect and adapt to the surrounding environment.Based on the developed self-reconfigurable robot special modules, we modified the definition of the element in the correlation matrix describing a robot configuration messages.Thus we also can describe the configuration messages using correlation matrix even though special modules are added.What's more,we did motion planning and simulation about a Roller-Walker configuration robot including developed modules.At last,we constructed a experiment system including the simulator and modules,did a simple experiment of synchronous movement about a virtual module and a actual module,completed the module test especially the sensor module's test and experiment.After that,we did a skating experiment based on the roller-walker configuration,verified the validity of the planned motion on locomotion of skating.