Modular Robots Auto-Arrange to Suit the Task

Nov-10-18 An innovative modular robotic system changes shape based on its tasking or navigational needs.

The system, developed by a team from Cornell University, relies on wheeled, cubed robots created at the University of Pennsylvania. The bots communicate with a centralized system via WiFi, which delivers detailed information on actions and configurations to allow the bots to work together. The robots attach to each other to form the required structures with magnets, and the team has already created 57 possible useful configurations and 97 behaviors, such as picking up an object, reaching, and moving forward or backwards.

According to project lead Hadas Kress-Gazit, "The hardware is still in research stages, but if we had commercial modular robots they would be very useful for anything where the environment changes significantly and the robot should adapt to its environment as well."

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[ELECTRONICSWEEKLY.COM]
[NEWS.CORNELL.EDU]

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