Related papers: Self-Organized Construction by Minimal Surprise
The deployment of simple emergent behaviors in swarm robotics has been well-rehearsed in the literature. A recent study has shown how self-aggregation is possible in a multitask approach -- where multiple self-aggregation task instances…
The goal of machine learning is to provide solutions which are trained by data or by experience coming from the environment. Many training algorithms exist and some brilliant successes were achieved. But even in structured environments for…
Every robot built to date was predesigned by an external process, prior to deployment. Here we show a robot that actively participates in its own design during its lifetime. Starting from a randomly assembled body, and using only…
This paper investigates a distributed formation control problem for networked robots, with the global objective of achieving predefined time-varying formations in an environment with obstacles. A novel fixed-time behavioral approach is…
Building structures can allow a robot to surmount large obstacles, expanding the set of areas it can reach. This paper presents a planning algorithm to automatically determine what structures a construction-capable robot must build in order…
Designing robots capable of generating interpretable behavior is a prerequisite for achieving effective human-robot collaboration. This means that the robots need to be capable of generating behavior that aligns with human expectations and,…
We present a system enabling a modular robot to autonomously build structures in order to accomplish high-level tasks. Building structures allows the robot to surmount large obstacles, expanding the set of tasks it can perform. This…
Multi-robot formation control enables robots to cooperate as a working group in completing complex tasks, which has been widely used in both civilian and military scenarios. Before moving to reach a given formation, each robot should choose…
We present progress on the problem of reconfiguring a 2D arrangement of building material by a cooperative group of robots. These robots must avoid collisions, deadlocks, and are subjected to the constraint of maintaining connectivity of…
We argue that hardware modularity plays a key role in the convergence of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We introduce a new approach for building robots that leads to more adaptable and capable machines. We present the concept of…
The emergence of vision catalysed a pivotal evolutionary advancement, enabling organisms not only to perceive but also to interact intelligently with their environment. This transformation is mirrored by the evolution of robotic systems,…
Swarm robotics is a creative method of organizing multi-robot structures, consisting of many basic robots influenced by communal insects. The greatest astonishing attribute of swarm robots is their capacity to function together to…
We introduce and analyze a model for self-reconfigurable robots made up of unit-cube modules. Compared to past models, our model aims to newly capture two important practical aspects of real-world robots. First, modules often do not occupy…
Imagine a robot that can assemble a functional product from the individual parts presented in any configuration to the robot. Designing such a robotic system is a complex problem which presents several open challenges. To bypass these…
Evolutionary algorithms offer great promise for the automatic design of robot bodies, tailoring them to specific environments or tasks. Most research is done on simplified models or virtual robots in physics simulators, which do not capture…
Robots sharing their space with humans need to be proactive in order to be helpful. Proactive robots are able to act on their own initiative in an anticipatory way to benefit humans. In this work, we investigate two ways to make robots…
Swarm robotic systems are mainly inspired by swarms of socials insects and the collective emergent behavior that arises from their cooperation at the lower lever. Despite the limited sensory ability, computational power, and communication…
In the real world, robots with embodiment face various issues such as dynamic continuous changes of the environment and input/output disturbances. The key to solving these issues can be found in daily life; people `do actions associated…
Although robotic manipulators are used in an ever-growing range of applications, robot manufacturers typically follow a ``one-fits-all'' philosophy, employing identical manipulators in various settings. This often leads to suboptimal…
We propose a decentralized control algorithm for a minimalistic robotic swarm with limited capabilities such that the desired global behavior emerges. We consider the problem of searching for and encapsulating various targets present in the…