Cellular Robotic System(CEB0T) as One of the Realization of Self-organizing Intelligent Universal Manipulator

The Cellular Robotic System(CEB0T) is a new kind o f r o b o t i c s y s t e m which is a b l e t o r e c o n f i g u r a t e i t s e l f t o o p t i m a l s t r u c t u r e depending on purpose and environment. I t is a distributed robotic system consisting of separable autonomous units called "cell". In this paper, we propose an optimal s t ructure decision method which can determine ce l l type, arrangement, degree of freedom and link length. I t can be applicable fo r fixed base and mobile base type manipulators, so t ha t universal/modular manipulators can be made. Simulat ion r e s u l t s show t h e d i f f e r e n c e i n evaluation fo r different candidates and tasks and also demonstrates t ha t the s t ructure decision method works efficiently. With respect t o software s t ructure , optimal knowledge allocation is one of the most important issue of CEBOT. We propose a method of optimal knowledge allocation based on communication information amount. Communication among cel ls a r e described for the control proposed in this paper.