This paper presents an alternative approach for dynamic partial self-reconfiguration that enables a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to reconfigure itself dynamically and partially through a parallel configuration access port (PCAP) under the control of the stand alone PCAP core within the FPGA instead of using an embedded processor. The reconfiguration process is accomplished without an in...

The increasing complexity of current software systems is encouraging the development of self-managed software architectures, i.e. systems capable of reconfiguring their structure at runtime to fulfil a set of goals. Several approaches have covered different aspects of their development, but some issues remain open, such as the maintainability or the scalability of self-management subsystems. Ce...

Over one decade of research in engineering of selforganization (SO) has established SO as the decentralized way to build self-adaptive systems. However, such SO systems even when well engineered may, under certain conditions, exhibit unwanted dynamical behavior, e.g. performance may decrease and/or starvation may occur. A promising concept to overcome such dynamical in-efficiencies in SO system...

This paper describes a distributed planner that allows a self-reconfiguring robot consisting of heterogeneous modules to change configuration without using extra space. This work builds on previous work on reconfiguration planning for homogeneous robots and our recent work on heterogeneous reconfiguration planning that requires temporary working space to execute. Motivated by a specific algorit...

This paper addresses motion planning of a homogeneous modular robotic system. The modules have self-reconfiguration capability so that a group of the modules can construct a robotic structure generating dynamic motion. Motion planning for self-reconfiguration is not straightforward because the modular structure allows many combinatorial configurations, and also the proposed module has only two ...

In this paper, a self-adaptive flange is proposed for the wind turbine shrouded by a flanged diffuser to reduce the wind loads acting on the flanged diffuser at high wind velocities. The self-adaptive flange can maintain the advantages of the flanged diffuser at wind velocities lower than the rated velocity and reduce the wind loads acting on the diffuser and blades at higher wind velocities. N...

We present the hardware and reconfiguration experiments for an autonomous self-reconfigurable modular robot called Roombots (RB). RB were designed to form the basis for self-reconfigurable furniture. Each RB module contains three degrees of freedom that have been carefully selected to allow a single module to reach any position on a 2-dimensional grid and to overcome concave corners in a 3-dime...

A self-reconfiguring platform is reported that enables an FPGA to dynamically reconfigure itself under the control of an embedded microprocessor. This platform has been implemented on Xilinx Virtex IItm and Virtex II Protm devices. The platform’s hardware architecture has been designed to be lightweight. Two APIs (Application Program Interface) are described which abstract the low level configu...

This paper presents a micro-sized self-reconfigurable modular robotic system using shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators. Composed of identical robotic modules, the system can actively configure various structures. The motion of module is based on two-dimensional rotation by using an actuator mechanism with two SMA torsion coil springs. The micro-sized module measures 2cm cube and weighs 15g, half...

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) provide an attractive solution to developers needing custom logic for short time-to-market products. Products embedding FPGA system-on-chip solutions have the advantage in that they can be updated once deployed. New FPGA firmware may be loaded via manufacturer-supplied memory devices or remotely via a network connection. Recent FPGAs allow for self-reconfi...