Parallax-Docking and Reconfiguration of Field Programmable Robot Arrays Using an Intermittently-Powered One-Hot Controller

Abstract

Field Programmable Robot Arrays (FPRAs) are microrobots with onboard reconfigurable logic. We assume MEMSbased micro-robots like those developed by Donald et al.[2] as a foundation to build FPRAs. We present architecture of the FPRA which has the following components: MEMS Scratch-DriveActuator (SDA) micro-robot, LEDs with matching photo sensors, electrical docking ports and onboard programmable logic array of a new kind called Field Programmable One-Hot Arrays (FPOHAs). SDAs need an intermittent power supply. We present a hardware solution to powering the FPOHA (from the intermittent supply to the FPRA) and a parallax algorithm which is used to achieve docking of robot arrays, after which the FPOHA may be retasked.

Bitstream Efficiency of Field Programmable One-Hot Arrays

“…Even more encouraging, optimal FPOHA bitstreams predicted by the above theory are at least two times more efficient than FPGA bitstreams, suggesting an improved VITO tool could produce similar results. These results are similar to an actual application described elsewhere [9], in which we use a VITOgenerated FPOHA for a parallax motion algorithm onboard a 200 µm MEMS micro-robot, where the configuration bitstream savings (1,536 versus 3,840) is very significant.…”

“…Field Programmable One-Hot Arrays (FPOHA) are novel fine-grained reprogrammable logic customized to represent one-hot controllers efficiently [9]. The number of flip flops that a one-hot controller uses equals the number of states in the state machine.…”