Abstract
This paper reviews several types of self-repairing systems developed in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. We have developed a modular system capable of “self-assembly” and “self-repair.” The former means a set of units can form a given shape of the system without outside help; the latter means the system restores the original shape if an arbitrary part of the system is cut off. We show both two-dimensional and three-dimensional unit designs, and distributed algorithms for the units.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Chen, I. and Burdick, J. 1998. Enumerating the non isomorphic assembly configurations of a modular robotics system. Intl. J. Robotics Research, 17(7):702–719.
Chirikjian, G. and Burdick, J. 1995. Kinematically optimal hyperredundants manipulator configurations. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 11(6):794–806.
Chrikjian, G., Pamecha, A., and Ebert-Uphoff, I. 1996. Evaluating efficiency of self-reconfiguration in a class of modular robots. J. Robotic Systems, 13(5):317–338.
Fukuda, T. and Kawauchi,Y. 1990. Cellular robotic system (CEBOT) as one of the realization of self-organizing intelligent universal manipulator. In Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. Robotics and Automation, pp. 662–667.
Hamlin, G. and Sanderson, A.C. 1998. Tetrobot; A Modular Approach to Reconfigurable Parallel Robotics, Kluwer. Academic Publishers: Boston.
Ichikawa, Y. 1992. One-dimensional self-reproducing machine. Trans. Robotics Society of Japan, 10(2):266–272. (in Japanese).
Kokaji, S. 1988. A fractal mechanism and a decentralized control method. In Proc. USA-Japan Symp. Flexible Automation, pp. 1129–1134.
Kokaji, S., Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., and Tomita, K. 1996. Clock synchronization algorithm for a distributed autonomous system. J. Robotics and Mechatronics, 8(5):427–434.
Kotay, K., Rus, D., Vona, M., and McGray, C. 1998. The Selfreconfigurable robotic molecule. In Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. Robotics and Automation, pp. 424–431.
Kotay, K. and Rus, D. 1999. Locomotion versatility through selfreconfiguration. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 26:217–232.
Kurokawa, H., Murata, S., Yoshida, E., Tomita, K., and Kokaji, S. 1998. A 3-D self-reconfigurable structure and experiment. In Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. Intelligent Robotics and Systems, pp. 860–859.
Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., and Kokaji, S. 1994. Self-assembling machine. In Proc. of IEEE Intl. Conf. Robotics and Automation, pp. 441–448.
Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., Yoshida, E., Tomita, K., and Kokaji, S. 1998. A 3-D self-reconfigurable structure. In Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. Robotics and Automation, pp. 432–439.
Pamecha, A., Ebert-Uphoff, I., and Chirikjian, G.S. 1997. Useful metrics for modular robot motion planning. IEEE Trans. Robotics and Automation, 13(4):531–545.
Rus, D. and Vona, M. 1999. Self-reconfiguration planning with compressible unit modules. In Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. Robotics and Automation, pp. 2513–2519.
Sakao, T., Kondor, S., Umeda, Y., and Tomiyama, T. The development of a cellular automatic warehouse. In Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 324–331.
Takata, S. 1991. Self-diagnosis and self-repair. J. Japan Society for Precision Engineering, 57(12):43–46. (in Japanese).
Tomita, K., Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., Yoshida, E., and Kokaji, S. 1996. Reconfiguration method for a distributed mechanical system. In Distributed Autonomous Robotic System 2 Asama et al. (Eds.), Springer-Verlag: Tokyo, pp. 17–25.
von Neumann, J. 1966. Theory of self-reproducing automata. Univ. Illinois Press: Urbana, IL.
Yim, M. 1994. New locomotion gaits. In Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. Robotics and Automation, pp. 2508–2524.
Yoshida, E., Murata, S., Kurokawa, H., Tomita, K., and Kokaji, S. 1998. A distributed reconfiguration method for 3-D homogeneous structure. In Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. Intelligent Robotics and Systems, pp. 852–865.
Yoshida, E., Murata, S., Tomita, K., Kurokawa, H., and Kokaji, S. 1997. Distributed formation control for a modular mechanical system. In Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 1090–1097.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Murata, S., Yoshida, E., Kurokawa, H. et al. Self-Repairing Mechanical Systems. Autonomous Robots 10, 7–21 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026540318188
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026540318188