Modular Robotic Design and Reconfiguring Path Planning

Abstract

The modular robot is becoming a prevalent research object in robots because of its unique configuration advantages and performance characteristics. It is possible to form robot configurations with different functions by reconfiguring functional modules. This paper focuses on studying the modular robot’s configuration design and self-reconfiguration process and hopes to realize the industrial application of the modular self-reconfiguration robot to a certain extent. We design robotic configurations with different DOF based on the cellular module of the hexahedron and perform the kinematic analysis of the structure. An innovative design of a modular reconfiguration platform for conformational reorganization is presented, and the collaborative path planning between different modules in the reconfiguration platform is investigated. We propose an optimized ant colony algorithm for reconfiguration path planning and verify the superiority and rationality of this algorithm compared with the traditional ant colony algorithm for platform path planning through simulation experiments.

Keywords

• modular robot
• configuration design
• kinematic analysis
• self-reconfiguration platform
• path planning
• optimized ant colony algorithm