A novel metamorphic anthropomorphic hand is for the first time introduced in this paper. This robotic hand has a reconfigurable palm that generates changeable topology and augments dexterity and versatility of the hand. Structure design of the robotic hand is presented and based on mechanism decomposition kinematics of the metamorphic anthropomorphic hand is characterized with closed-form solut...

We present a general distributed control algorithm for achieving locomotion of a self-reconfigurable robot. In this algorithm each module continuously performs a cyclic sequence of actions with a period . When a specified fraction of this period has elapsed a signal is sent to all child modules. Upon receiving this signal the child module resets its action sequence making it delayed compared to...

Modular reconfigurable robots offer the promise of more versatility, robustness, and low cost. They are composed of simple and small modules, capable of attach and detach one to each other. In this paper, a modular worm-like robot composed of a chain of 8 similar modules is presented. A travelling wave, that moves from the tail to the head, propels the robot forward. The positions of the articu...

ions, Analysis Techniques, and Synthesis of Scalable Control Strategies for Robot Swarms Spring Berman Department of Computer Science Harvard University February 28, 2011 Abstract Tasks that require parallelism, redundancy, and adaptation to dynamic, possibly hazardous environments can potentially be performed very efficiently and robustly by a swarm of hundreds to thousands of autonomous robot...

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) offer a key technology for the realization of mass customization. Compared with integral systems, RMS may provide system configurations to satisfy a wide range of Functional Requirements (FRs). An important issue for RMS is configuration design, the determination of a configuration from all of feasible configurations to meet FRs. Configuration design ...

The last few years have witnessed an increasing interest in reconfigurable mobile robotic technologies (Yim, M.; et al., 2000). The applications include the following areas: industrial inspection (Granosik, G.; Hansen, M. G.; Borenstein, J. 2005), conducting surveillance, urban search and rescue, military reconnaissance and space exploration (Yim, M.; et al., 2003). Reconfigurable robots consis...

We have developed the system of "Reconfigurable Brachiating Space Robot (RBR)". This space robot is designed based upon the modularized design, the cable reduction and the distributed control technique. This robot is capable of moving over the “KIBO” (Japanese Experimental Module) of the International Space Station in a brachiating manner and also capable of arm reconfiguration according to the...

Configuration space computation is a transformation which can be adopted in robot path planning. This process reduces a robot with dimensions to become a single reference point by expanding each obstacle on the image plane. This approach reduces a complex problem into a simple one. In this paper parallel algorithms for computing the configuration space obstacles by using arrays with reconfigura...