Related papers: ShapeBots: Shape-changing Swarm Robots

In this paper, we study the circle formation problem by multiple autonomous and homogeneous disc-shaped robots (also known as fat robots). The goal of the robots is to place themselves on the periphery of a circle. Circle formation has many…

This paper presents a distributed scalable multi-robot planning algorithm for informed sampling of quasistatic spatial fields. We address the problem of efficient data collection using multiple autonomous vehicles and consider the effects…

The density-distribution method has recently become a promising paradigm owing to its adaptability to variations in swarm size. However, existing studies face practical challenges in achieving complex shape representation and decentralized…

The fast urbanization and climate change challenges require solutions that enable the efficient movement of people and goods in cities. We envision future cities to be composed of high-performing walkable districts where transportation…

Autonomy for robots interacting with sand will enable a wide range of beneficial behaviors, from earth moving for construction and farming vehicles to navigating rough terrain for Mars rovers. The goal of this work is to shape sand into…

Autonomous swarms of robots can bring robustness, scalability and adaptability to safety-critical tasks such as search and rescue but their application is still very limited. Using semi-autonomous swarms with human control can bring robot…

Many new methodologies for the control of large-scale multi-agent systems are based on macroscopic representations of the emerging system dynamics, in the form of continuum approximations of large ensembles. These techniques, that are…

Legged robots can have a unique role in manipulating objects in dynamic, human-centric, or otherwise inaccessible environments. Although most legged robotics research to date typically focuses on traversing these challenging environments,…

Through the implementation of reconfigurability to achieve flexibility and adaptation to tasks by morphology changes rather than by increasing the number of joints, malleable robots present advantages over traditional serial robot arms in…

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the open-hardware microrobotic project swarmrobot.org and the platform Jasmine for building large-scale artificial swarms. The project targets an open development of cost-effective…

The ability to modify morphology in response to environmental changes represents a highly advantageous feature in biological organisms, facilitating their adaptation to diverse environmental conditions. While some robots have the capability…

In this paper, we address the shape formation problem for massive robot swarms in environments where external localization systems are unavailable. Achieving this task effectively with solely onboard measurements is still scarcely explored…

In this work, we investigate swarm self-clustering, where robots autonomously organize into spatially coherent groups using only local sensing and decision-making, without external commands, global positioning, or inter-robot communication.…

A metamorphic robotic system is an aggregate of homogeneous robot units which can individually and selectively locomote in such a way as to change the global shape of the system. We introduce a mathematical framework for defining and…

A key requirement in robotics is the ability to simultaneously self-localize and map a previously unknown environment, relying primarily on onboard sensing and computation. Achieving fully onboard accurate simultaneous localization and…

This article takes a step to provide humanoid robots with adaptive morphology abilities. We present a systematic approach for enabling robotic covers to morph their shape, with an overall size fitting the anthropometric dimensions of a…

Humanoid robots, with their human-like form, are uniquely suited for interacting in environments built for people. However, enabling humanoids to reason, plan, and act in complex open-world settings remains a challenge. World models, models…

Soft robots offer adaptability and safe interaction with complex environments. Rapid prototyping kits that allow soft robots to be assembled easily will allow different geometries to be explored quickly to suit different environments or to…

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 paper represents the state of the art development on the field of artificial multi-robot organisms. It briefly considers mechatronic development, sensor and computational equipment, software framework and introduces one of the Grand…