THE SCIENCE OF robotics is starting to catch up with Saturday morning cartoons. Researchers at USC’s Information Sciences Institute have created working robotic units that bear a striking resemblance to animated sci-fi’s Transformers – small, simple machines with the ability to knit themselves into complex devices.
While they can’t yet turn themselves from tanks to airplanes to submarines, ConRos (short for “configurable robots”) can auto-nomously seek and find each other and, when combined, work as a unified system. Soon they may even be creeping through crevices in earthquake debris or braving flames at a fire scene. Once inside, they might assemble into devices that can carry cameras, water or medicine to people trapped in the rubble. Or they could even jack up rocks and clear an escape path. Other possible tasks include surveillance work or scouting on battlefields.
Each 3-inch-long ConRo unit consists of a small electric motor, a computer chip and an “active end” that can move back and forth, and up and down. Special plugs fit into receptacles on the front of other devices. An onboard computer chip directs the robot’s activities. Each unit’s chip can also receive and send instructions to the processors in its sister units using infrared transmitters.
SO FAR, ISI researchers have succeeded in getting a snake of six robots to find and link to its own tail, forming a ring capable of standing on its side and rolling forward. In another eight-unit configuration, the ConRos form an insect-like creature that walks on six legs, moving three at a time. Peter Will, who directs the ConRo project, notes that creation of truly capable “metamorphing” robots will require many improvements, including better chips that run on less power.
The software demands are daunting, too. Once robot modules get together, it’s tricky figuring out who’s the head, who’s the tail, who’s the leg and who’s the arm.
“The robots must recognize the conditions that dictate a change in form, must determine the proper new form to assume, and be able to do so quickly and efficiently under confused, real world conditions,” says Will.
ISI researchers are pursuing two different paths in creating software for the ConRo system. Andres Castano, who designed and to a large extent built the devices, pursues a holistic programming direction, in which a single schema guides the assembled robots through their activities. Wei-Min Shen, who has programmed autonomous wheeled robots to play soccer in the annual “RoboCup” competition, uses software modules called “hormones” (modeled on the biochemical messengers in human bodies). By orchestrating software hormones in the proper order, Shen believes he will be able to program any needed movement.
The project is funded by DARPA, the central research and development organization of the U.S. Department of Defense. A video of the ConRo units in action is available online (www.isi.edu/conro).
|
|
