What's in the Bag: A Distributed Approach to 3D Shape Duplication with Modular Robots

Abstract

Abstract-Our goal is to develop an automated digital fabrication process that can make any object out of smart materials. In this paper, we present an algorithm for creating shapes by the process of duplication, using modules we have termed smart sand. The object to be duplicated is dipped into a bag of smart sand; the particles exchange messages to sense the object's shape; and then the particles selectively form mechanical bonds with their neighbors to form a duplicate of the original.Our algorithm is capable of duplicating convex and concave 3D objects in a completely distributed manner. It uses O(1) storage space and O(n) inter-module messages per module. We perform close to 500 experiments using a realistic simulator with over 1400 modules. These experiments confirm the functionality and messaging demands of our distributed duplication algorithm while demonstrating that the algorithm can be used to form interesting and useful shapes.

Modeling the fractal development of modular robots

“…As shown in Figure 12, a robot system with 52 modules reconfigures using the L-system in equation (10). There is no conflict when the module numbers are small.…”

“…There are absolutely decentralized algorithms without predefined configurations. [7][8][9][10][11] The configuration emerges along with the interaction with surroundings or tasks at hand. Although the robustness of the method is high match with the distributed nature of modular robots, the self-organizing process can hardly converge to effective configurations.…”

Cubimorph: Designing modular interactive devices

“…Most algorithms do not take into consideration a constrained space and are specific to some design such as MTRAN [44] Pebbles [12] or Catoms-like structures using hexagonal modules [43] [40]. More generic algorithms such as Motein [34], protein-folding algorithm [1] or 2D chaining [31], also fail to validate this requirement as they rely on applying repulsive forces to unfold the chain and thus generally tend undergo a fully unfolded phase (all modules in a straight line).…”

Concepts for 3D Printing-Based Self-Replicating Robot Command and Coordination Techniques

“…These robots collect cubes from feeder troughs and use them to produce equivalent copies. Even more flexible is the work presented in [20], where an algorithm for duplicating shapes using 'smart sand' replicates the shape of presented 3D objects. This work's efficacy was demonstrated via hundreds of simulated test runs.…”