Abstract
A self-reconfigurable robot is a robotic device that can change its
own shape. Self-reconfigurable robots are commonly built from
multiple identical modules that can manipulate each other to change
the shape of the robot. The robot can also perform tasks such as locomotion
without changing shape. We observe that the challenges
in programming self-reconfigurable robots are similar to the challenges
in programming sensor networks: a large number of lowend
embedded systems connected using ad-hoc networking need
to gather information using sensors and to communicate information
to other systems in the network. However, there are significant
differences as well, notably a self-reconfigurable robot must
typically function autonomously and the network topology will
evolve continuously as the robot changes its shape. Software for
self-reconfigurable robots, beyond controlling shape-change and
locomotion, remains largely unexplored, but we believe experiences
from sensor networks to be applicable within this domain.
Moreover, we present an initial design of a middleware for selfreconfigurable
robots and relate it to similar solutions for sensor
networks.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proc. of Workshop on Building Software for Sensor Networks at OOPSLA 06 |
Publication date | 2006 |
Publication status | Published - 2006 |
Externally published | Yes |
Event | OOPSLA 2006 Workshop on Building Software for Sensor Networks - Portland, Oregon, USA Duration: 1 Jan 2006 → … |
Conference
Conference | OOPSLA 2006 Workshop on Building Software for Sensor Networks |
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City | Portland, Oregon, USA |
Period | 01/01/2006 → … |