Modular Reconfigurable Robotics
Mark Yim
Xerox PARC
Abstract
Modular, self-reconfigurable robots are those that are made up
of a large number of modules, but a small number of module types.
As the number of modules increases, these systems show promise of great
versatility, robustness and low cost. However, to make this realizable
there are many computational and manufacturing issues that must be
addressed.
We will show the progress of two modular reconfigurable robot systems;
PolyBot and Proteo, and present some of the issues in applying them to
a search and rescue task and a shape configuration task
respectively. These tasks are rich in interesting problems in motion
planning in unstructured environments, distributed computation and
control, robust redundant actuation and control, computational
geometry, and image understanding/sensor fusion.
About the Speaker
Mark Yim has been a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(PARC) since 1996. Currently, he leads a government funded project
building a modular, reconfigurable robot system at PARC. He has
recently authored a book chapter on robots for kids. He has published
in journals and conferences in the areas of mobile robot planning,
distributed robotics, optimal control, MEMS, and haptic devices. He
has authored over 20 patents. His work on MEMS and robotics has been
featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Discovery Channel, BBC news
and MSNBC. He has been nominated as one of the TR100, the top 100
young innovators by Technology Review Magazine. He received his PhD in
mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1994.
bac-coordinators@cs.stanford.edu
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Last modified:
Tue Sep 21 18:59:46 PDT 1999