Supervised morphogenesis: morphology control of ground-based self-assembling robots by aerial robots

  • Authors:

  • Nithin Mathews;Alessandro Stranieri;Alexander Scheidler;Marco Dorigo

  • Affiliations:

  • IRIDIA, CoDE, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium;IRIDIA, CoDE, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium;IRIDIA, CoDE, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium;IRIDIA, CoDE, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

In this paper, we study a heterogeneous robot team composed of self-assembling robots and aerial robots that cooperate with each other to carry out global tasks. We introduce supervised morphogenesis -- an approach in which aerial robots exploit their better view of the environment to detect tasks on the ground that require self-assembly, and perform on-board simulations to determine the morphology most adequate to carry out the task. In case existing morphologies on the ground do not match those determined in simulation, aerial robots use a series of enabling mechanisms to initiate and control (hence supervise) the formation of morphologies more adequate to carry out the task. Supervised morphogenesis solely employs LEDs and camera-based local communication between the two robot types. We validate the applicability of our approach in a real-world scenario, in which ground-based robots are given the task to cross an unknown, undulated terrain by forming ad-hoc morphologies under the supervision of an aerial robot.