Collective displacement of modular robots using self-reconfiguration

Collective displacement is a very useful behaviour for living creatures. This behaviour can appear in a flock of birds, a school of fish, or a swarm of insects. Flocking behaviour is a common demonstration of the power of simple rules in collective displacement emergence by (Reynolds, 2007). The study of the displacement of a robot in an unknown universe is a traditional subject of robotics (Fredslund & Mataric, 2002). We address the problem of the displacement of a group of robot modules which are part of a reconfigurable robot (Christensen, 2005). Collective displacement is considered a very complex problem (Yoshida, 2001). The number of possible solutions gives a combinative explosion in the graph of possible displacements. In this chapter we target the collective displacement through modular selfreconfigurablility. The objective is to find simple rules to co-ordinate autonomously a high level of decision of action for the modular robot. By the implementation of those same rules in all the modules of the robot an emergent displacement should appear. This emergent displacement will be used to reach the goal.