[Colloq] Reminder *** Colloquium starts in 10 Minutes*** 149 Cullinane Hall

[Rachel Bates]

Daniela Rus
Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth & Department of EECS, MIT
will speak on
Challenges and Successes in Self-reconfiguring Robots
October 15th, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m
149 Cullinane Hall


ABSTRACT

Our goal is to create versatile robots by using self-reconfiguration:
hundreds of small modules will autonomously organize and reorganize as
geometric structures to best fit the terrain on which the robot has to move,
the shape of the object the robot has to manipulate, or the sensing needs
for the given task. Large collections of small robots will actively organize
as the most optimal geometric structure to perform useful coordinated work.

A self-reconfiguring robot consists of a set of identical modules that can
dynamically and autonomously reconfigure in a variety of shapes, to best fit
the terrain, environment, and task. Self-reconfiguration leads to versatile
robots that can support multiple modalities of locomotion and manipulation.
Self-reconfiguring robots constitute large-scale distributed systems.
Because the modules change their location continuously they also constitute
ad-hoc networks.

In this talk I will describe two self-reconfiguring robots we designed and
built: the Crystal robot and the Molecule Robot.  I will also talk about
algorithmic challenges related to controlling large scale self-reconfiguring
robots, focusing on one hardware-specific distributed planner and on another
more generic distributed planner and its instantiations to specific robot
architectures. Finally, I will discuss some systems issues that arise in
building a communication infrastructure for such robots.

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Jointly sponsored by the AI  Seminar series and the College Colloquium
series.