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We consider geometric collision-detection problems for modular reconfigurable robots. Assuming the nodes (modules) are connected squares on a grid, we investigate the complexity of deciding whether collisions may occur, or can be avoided,…
We consider a swarm of $n$ robots in \mathbb{R}^d. The robots are oblivious, disoriented (no common coordinate system/compass), and have limited visibility (observe other robots up to a constant distance). The basic formation task gathering…
The sliding square model is a widely used abstraction for studying self-reconfigurable robotic systems, where modules are square-shaped robots that move by sliding or rotating over one another. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed…
This chapter is about the fundamentals of fabrication, control, and human-robot interaction of a new type of collaborative robotic manipulators, called malleable robots, which are based on adjustable architectures of varying stiffness for…
The simplest prescription for building a patterned structure from its constituents is to add particles, one at a time, to an appropriate template. However, self-organizing molecular and colloidal systems in nature can evolve in much more…
Micro- and nanorobots are often controlled by global input signals, such as an electromagnetic or gravitational field. These fields move each robot maximally until it hits a stationary obstacle or another stationary robot. This paper…
Motivated by targeted drug delivery, we investigate the gathering of particles in the full tilt model of externally controlled motion planning: A set of particles is located at the tiles of a polyomino with all particles reacting uniformly…
We consider a solution of automata similar to Population Protocols and Network Constructors. The automata (or nodes) move passively in a well-mixed solution and can cooperate by interacting in pairs. Every such interaction may result in an…
This paper investigates the use of a sampling-based approach, the RRT*, to reconfigure a 2D set of connected tiles in complex environments, where multiple obstacles might be present. Since the target application is automated building of…
Modern experimental methods enable the creation of self-assembly building blocks with tunable interactions, but optimally exploiting this tunability for the self-assembly of desired structures remains an important challenge. Many studies of…
Assembly of multi-part physical structures is both a valuable end product for autonomous robotics, as well as a valuable diagnostic task for open-ended training of embodied intelligent agents. We introduce a naturalistic physics-based…
We consider a distributed system consisting of autonomous mobile computing entities, called robots, moving in a specified space. The robots are anonymous, oblivious, and have neither any access to the global coordinate system nor any…
Path planning for multiple robots is well studied in the AI and robotics communities. For a given discretized environment, robots need to find collision-free paths to a set of specified goal locations. Robots can be fully anonymous,…
We propose a novel algorithm for forming arbitrarily shaped assemblies using decentralized robots. By relying on local interactions, the algorithm ensures there are no unreachable states or gaps in the assembly, which are global properties.…
Mobile microrobots are envisioned to be useful in a wide range of high-impact applications, many of which requiring cohesive group formation to maintain self-bounded swarms in the absence of confining boundaries. Cohesive group formation…
The ability to place objects in the environment is an important skill for a personal robot. An object should not only be placed stably, but should also be placed in its preferred location/orientation. For instance, a plate is preferred to…
In the arbitrary pattern formation problem, $n$ autonomous, mobile robots must form an arbitrary pattern $P \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$. The (deterministic) robots are typically assumed to be indistinguishable, disoriented, and unable to…
The aim of the dispersion problem is to place a set of $k(\leq n)$ mobile robots in the nodes of an unknown graph consisting of $n$ nodes such that in the final configuration each node contains at most one robot, starting from any arbitrary…
Several interesting problems in multi-robot systems can be cast in the framework of distributed optimization. Examples include multi-robot task allocation, vehicle routing, target protection, and surveillance. While the theoretical analysis…
This paper presents a novel modular robot system that can self-reconfigure to achieve omnidirectional movements for collaborative object transportation. Each robotic module is equipped with a steerable omni-wheel for navigation and is…